Culture

The Department Of Justice Is Investigating A Wave Of Bomb Threats Targeting Jewish Community Centers

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On Monday, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division (in conjunction with the FBI) announced that it’s looking into a recent string of bomb threats directed at 10 Jewish community centers across the country. These threats are being investigated as civil rights violations and arrive as vandals damaged over 100 headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Missouri.

The phoned-in bomb threats weren’t directed at one section of the country, as “Alabama, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas and New York” were targeted. Thankfully, the calls were hoaxes, and no one was hurt, but this is a continuation of ongoing threats against the Jewish community.

Meanwhile in Missouri, nearly 200 headstones at the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery were defaced and knocked over, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The White House condemned the attacks with Press Secretary Sean Spicer saying that hate-motivated violence has “no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom.” Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism for her marriage, echoed Spicer’s comments on Twitter:

On Tuesday morning, Trump spoke out against the attacks (“anti-Semitism is horrible and it’s going to stop”) while visiting the National Museum of African American History:

His condemnation arrives after Trump told a Jewish reporter to “sit down” when he asked about the threats at last week’s combative press conference. Earlier on Tuesday morning, Hillary Clinton tweet-urged “everyone” to speak out on these attacks, beginning with Trump.

(Via NBC News, CNN, The Jerusalem Post & St. Louis Dispatch)