BREAKING: Man who tore down flyers of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas identified as UPenn library assistant

The man who was recorded tearing down posters of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas has been identified as University of Pennsylvania library assistant Matthew Carson Wranovics.

In a video posted on social media by the group Stop Antisemitism, Wranovics can be seen ripping posters down on a campus bridge on Oct. 17 as a camera woman speaks to him.

"Why are you tearing them down?" she asks. "Innocent people were kidnapped." Wranovics swears at her before saying that innocent people were killed at a hospital. A blast at the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza has enraged those in Muslim countries, leading to violent rioting targeting Israeli and American embassies in multiple countries. The Israel Defense Forces says it was a failed rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad group that fell on the hospital.

The University of Pennsylvania has scrubbed Wranovics' photo from its website, which identifies him as a "Library Assistant for Circulation" and that his pronouns are "he/him."




Wranovics has a long history of far-left activism. In 2014, he was arrested at a leftist direct action at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Matthew Carson Wranovics was arrested after he took part in a leftist direct action at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2014.  

Wranovics either is or was a student who is pursuing a master's degree at Drexel University, according to a post on CouchSurfing.

A YouTube account by the name of Mat Wranovics posted a video in 2020 dedicated to George Floyd and hatred of the police.

Wranovics' vandalism at U Penn comes amid several incidents where Jewish or Israeli students were allegedly singled out and targeted in the classroom or on campus at protests where Hamas was celebrated. The door of a dorm room belonging to a Jewish student at Drexel University, which is also in Pennsylvania, was set on fire last week. A far-left instructor of critical race theory at Stanford University was suspended from his job after he allegedly ordered Jewish students to stand in the corner of the classroom. "This is what Israel does to the Palestinians," lecturer Ameer Hasan Loggins allegedly said. "Colonizers killed more than six million. Israel is a colonizer."

Several student organizations at Harvard University also faced backlash from alumni donors after they released a statement saying Israel is "entirely responsible" for the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas. Harvard's president eventually issued an official response criticizing the statement. 

The Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel earlier this month killed around 1,300 people—mostly civilians. Around 200 missing people, including children and the elderly, are believed to have been kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza. Flyers dedicated to the missing posted in cities around the world by Jewish activist groups have been torn down by Muslims and leftist activists.

The Post Millennial has reached out to Wranovics with a request for comment. This is a developing story. 

Andy Ngo contributed to this report.