Sixteen Jewish community centers and institutions across the US received bomb threats by robocall or live phone calls yesterday, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The calls were prerecorded in some cases and live in others, with the caller using voice disguising technology, and likely came from a single source, said Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Community Network, the group affiliated with the Jewish Federations of North America that coordinates security for the Jewish community.
The states were spread across the South and the Northeast. …
All the alerts were false, Goldenberg said, and designed to produce maximum disruption.
“In the Northeast it’s 20 degrees outside and these individuals are doing everything they can to disrupt who we are and what we do,” Goldenberg told JTA.
In London, three Jewish schools received similar threats on the same day.
JTA notes that while Jewish institutions have long been targets for threats and abuse,
There has been an increase in the United States in reports of threats and vandalism on Jewish property in the wake of the presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump, who was reluctant to denounce support during the campaign from white supremacists and anti-Semites, has since repudiated racists who say they feel emboldened by his victory, as well as ultranationalist successes in Europe.
Find the JTA report here. Religion News Service picks up the story here.
Image: A Jewish Community Center in Florida is evacuated Monday. No explosives were found at the scene. Via WPLG Local 10 News on Twitter