Rochester Jewish community center evacuated after bomb threat

The Rochester JCC was the latest Jewish institution in the US to be targeted by anti-Semitism. 

The  Jewish Community Center in Rochester, New York, was evacuated and shut down early Tuesday morning following a phoned-in bomb threat.

All 75 members and staff present were evacuated from the facility shortly before 6 a.m.

This comes less than one week after 16 headstones were damaged in a Jewish cemetery in the city. State Police are still working with various law enforcement agencies to investigate that case.

Since January, some 125 bomb threats have been called into Jewish organizations in 36 states across the US. Similarly, two Jewish cemeteries in Philadelphia and St. Louis were vandalized and desecrated.

According to the latest FBI statistics, the number of anti-Semitic criminal offenses rose from 635 in 2014 to 695 in 2015.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo denounced local and national incidents of vandalism and threats as “repugnant.”

By: World Israel News Staff