Seeking further protection for JCCs

After a bomb threat called in to the Mid-Island Jewish Community Center in Plainview on Feb. 27 — the second in Nassau County this year — police announced heightened patrols around the county’s religious institutions and have launched a full investigation.

Over the last two months, more than 100 threats — all unfounded — have targeted 81 locations around the country, Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter said at a news conference in Mineola last week. On Jan. 18, the Barry and Florence Friedberg JCC in Oceanside received a bomb threat, which caused staff, guests and members to evacuate.

Joel Block, the executive director of the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC in Cedarhurst, said in an email, “the security of our program participants and staff remains of the utmost importance.”

“[We] have procedures in place for a variety of threats, Block said. “Please be assured that our emergency preparedness includes communicating with out staff, local police, emergency personnel and of course our participants and their families.” Any threat to harm anyone is taken very seriously, he added.

“Obviously a threat to any one person’s constitutional right to express freedom of religion is a threat to every citizen here in our county,” County Executive Ed Mangano said at the conference. “… We have worked and have recognized that we have to do more to combat terrorism.”

Nassau police, in conjunction with the New York City Police Department, New York State police, Suffolk police and the FBI, are probing the threats, Krumpter said. He could not say at the time whether the national waves of threats are connected, there were similarities between the ones made to the Oceanside and Plainview centers.

On March 3, police arrested Juan Thompson in St. Louis, Mo., for allegedly making eight threats in January and February against the Anti-Defamation League office in New York, a Jewish history museum in Manhattan, as well as Jewish centers and schools in New York, Michigan, Dallas and San Diego.

Intensified patrols at religious institutions, which began in December around the holidays and persisted after the threat to the Friedberg JCC in mid-January, will continue, Krumpter said. NCPD’s intelligence units contacted all of the roughly 180 Jewish religious institutions in the county after the Oceanside threat, he added, and police will be visiting such facilities more frequently for longer periods of time.

Krumpter said the increased protection around the county would extend beyond Jewish institutions. “What I encourage everybody to do is go on with their lives, go to their house of worship,” he said, “and let them know that we, as a society, cannot be intimidated.”

Arthur Katz, senior ambassador of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Long Island, emphasized that increased police presence is just one aspect of combating what Krumpter labeled as “fear tactics.”

“You’ll see the patrol cars, but then it’s what you don’t see that also makes a difference,” Katz said. “The police and our community centers and our synagogues have also taken precautions although you might not see them.”

Krumpter said police would be working to implement the Rave Mobile Safety system — a panic app already used in some of the county’s schools — within religious institutions. The app allows users to reach law enforcement, first responders and on-site employees during an emergency with one tap on a cell phone. In addition, the system can share information about the affected location, including emergency contacts and surveillance camera feeds.

In response to the most recent of the five waves of threats to JCCs so far this year, which targeted not only the Plainview facility, but also centers in 11 states — including in Staten Island and Westchester — Sen. Chuck Schumer called on the Federal Communications Commission to allow targeted JCCs to trace call information.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Varadaraj Pai on March 1, Schumer (D-N.Y.) cited the agency’s passage of a special waiver last year that allowed the Middletown School District in New York to access caller information after it received terror threats over the phone.

“These senseless, hateful attacks are unacceptable and should be investigated thoroughly and expediently,” Schumer wrote. “I urge you to do everything in your power to track these perpetrators down and prevent future attacks.”

The FCC granted a temporary emergency waiver for targeted JCCs to trace caller information on March 3.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also announced in a statement last week that his administration is investing $25 million in enhancing safety and security in the state’s religious schools and day care centers.

Rabbi Barry Dov Schwartz connected the threats to Purim, a Jewish holiday beginning on March 11. This is not the first time the Jewish community and its institutions have been threatened, Schwartz said.

“I’ll just conclude with one word which expresses our goal, the goal of all of us,” he said. “That is, Shalom.”