19 Jewish Centers Received Bomb Threats on the Same Day

Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.

Nearly 20 Jewish Community Centers across the country received emailed bomb threats Sunday, and now the FBI has opened an investigation into who sent them and why.

At a press conference outside the Albany Jewish Community Center, which was evacuated in response to an emailed threat, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said several New York sites were among the nationwide total of 19 that had been targeted, although he didn’t give specifics.

“You have your children in a class in the building, and they say there is a bomb threat,” Cuomo said, according to the Times Union. “That is terror.”

In 2017, the Albany JCC was among 54 Jewish facilities across the country targeted by phoned bomb threats. The threats were later found to be a hoax by an Israeli-American 19-year-old who has since been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The threats come alongside growing concern about anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Semitic hate crimes rose by 26% in New York last year, despite overall crime being at a record low, according to the NYPD.

Cuomo said that state investigators have looked into over 40 anti-Semitic incidents in New York, which has the largest Jewish population in the U.S., in recent months. That includes a stabbing attack at the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, Rockland County, on December 28 that left five wounded. The suspect, who’s facing federal hate crime charges, allegedly kept journals that contained references to Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

Cuomo said that state investigators have looked into over 40 anti-Semitic incidents in New York, which has the largest Jewish population in the U.S., in recent months. That includes a stabbing attack at the home of a Hasidic rabbi in Monsey, Rockland County, on December 28 that left five wounded. The suspect, who’s facing federal hate crime charges, allegedly kept journals that contained references to Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

Other recent incidents have included anti-Semitic graffiti. For example, Cuomo directed the state police hate crimes task force to investigate when a swastika and the words “Kill All Jews” were discovered scrawled on the walls of Brooklyn Tech High School.

Cover: @NYGovCuomo/Twitter