The FBI on Friday morning informed Jewish leaders that the threat against shuls which prompted a public warning on Thursday afternoon has been taken care of. The FBI said it has identified the individual behind the threat “has been located and the threat has now been mitigated.”
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, NJ Attorney General Matt Platkin, and FBI representatives told askanim on a group call that a suspect in New Jersey who espoused extreme ideological views was confronted and apprehended by law enforcement late Thursday night.
Once in custody, the suspect expressed radical ideological views and hatred of Jews, according to officials on the call.
“The man spoke to law enforcement of anger he said he had toward Jewish people, but allegedly said he would not hurt them because he wouldn’t want to get into trouble,” NBC reported.
Officials said the alert was put out yesterday afternoon as they were concerned about schools being targeted during dismissal times.
The FBI says its investigation is still ongoing, though there is no threat to the Jewish community at this time. Even so, there will be additional law enforcement resources at and around shuls through Shabbos.
ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES BELOW.
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The FBI said Thursday that it had received credible information about a “broad” threat to synagogues in New Jersey, a warning that prompted some municipalities to send extra police officers to guard houses of worship.
The nature of the threat was vague. The FBI’s Newark office released a statement urging synagogues to “take all security precautions to protect your community and facility,” but wouldn’t say anything about who made the threat or why.
ABC News reported that the threat was not a bomb threat.
Officials from the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Division have confirmed to YWN that it has fully reviewed the intel provided by the FBI and has determined that there is no threat to shuls in New York City.
The alert was posted after officials discovered an online threat directed broadly at synagogues in New Jersey, a law enforcement official said. The posting did not target any specific synagogue by name, the official said. The official could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Messages left with the FBI’s Newark office weren’t returned.
Public warnings about nonspecific threats against Jewish institutions, made by a variety of groups including Christian supremacists and Islamist extremists, aren’t unusual in the New York City metropolitan area, and many turn out to be false alarms. But the area has also seen deadly attacks.
In Jersey City, Mayor Steven Fulop said police would be posted at the city’s seven synagogues and foot patrols would be added in the broader Jewish community. In 2019, two assailants motivated by anti-Jewish hate killed a police officer, then drove to a kosher market in Jersey City and killed three more people, before being slain in a gunbattle with police.
Police officers armed with rifles guarded a synagogue one city over, in Hoboken, where the public safety director also announced increased patrols in Jewish communities.
Five years ago, two New Jersey men were sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted for a series of attacks in 2012 that included the firebombings of two synagogues. They also threw a Molotov cocktail into the home of a rabbi as he slept with his wife and children.
In 2019, a man stabbed five people at a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City, fatally wounding one person.
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, said he was “concerned and outraged” by the latest threat against Jews.
“I am deeply concerned and outraged by today’s alert from the FBI,” Gottheimer said. “This is what happens after years of antisemitic comments from public figures,” he added, citing recent comments by Kanye West and a social media post shared by NBA star Kyrie Irving.
The FBI didn’t release any information suggesting the threat that prompted the warning was related to the public debate over those comments.
(AP/YWN)
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23 Responses
isnt the NJ state police liaison Abe Friedman of Brooklyn?
During the days of King Achav, they went to battle and all the Jewish people returned safely.
The Midrash explains that there was zero Loshon HaRah amongst the Jewish nation. When ever we are at peace with one another, then Hashem sends to us the best protection in the world. This is clearly written in the Gemara and also the Midrash.
We need to give other people the benefit of the doubt and to judge everyone in a favorable manner.
This will lead to peace amongst us and Hashem promises to protect us.
Why are these hateful incidents happening under the Biden administration?
A few years ago R’ Chaim Kanievski was asked if it was necessary to spend money on protecting shuls in America and he said that if they could stop people from talking during davening it wasn’t necessary. When he was told that that might not be possible he said that in that case then some money should be spent on protecting the shuls. Does anyone get the message?
Be afraid. The government wants you afraid.
Oh, and a white supremacist threat… right on schedule.
all I can share with this horror is that America is no longer under the eyes and watch of Hashem in the manner where it was before…Torah rests in Israel and in the nation of its choice…..nice to watch, see and understand that Hashem controls and the weight of his pressure depends on us….may Biden and his family enjoy the path most resistance and horror …may they receive what they have given and purchased for others.
somehow, this “warning” doesn’t sound right. the fbi’s job is to apprehend criminals, not warn about them. issuing a warning like this means that they have failed to stop the individual(s) whom they know are planing to commit a violent crime. and it transfers the responsibility for the consequences of that failure to the jewish community, because “they have been warned”.
All of this because some spiteful greedy Lakewood Askonim this week 1 year ago, backed up Murphy, and that tiny difference was enough to put Murphy over his rival.
Let not NYS Askonim fall into this same trap חס ושלום
Por: I don’t believe such a holy and learned man would ever say something so silly. There were so many beautiful Jews in Europe before the War who never dreamed of talking during davenen and they still perished.
unommin said it best, so I’ll keep my snarky comments to myself.
Ari knobler
That’s like saying it can’t be that smoking causes cancer, I know a lot of people who never smoked and still got cancer
Por was referring to when Rav Eitan Feiner went to Rav Chaim and asked him
I do not trust anything that is coming out of the mouth corrupt and lawless FBI.
So much stupidity, so little time. For example, schloimebutt wants the FBI not to warn about credible threats if it has not caught the persons making the threats.
To Ari Knobler:
You forgot to mention that also the famous Tanna Rabbi Akiva may his memory be blessed, the gentiles gave him a painful death similar to the Holocaust (which was your comment) and we all know that Rabbi Akiva, he never spoke during davening and still he got a painful death like the Holocaust.
A lot of Mefarshim say that Rabbi Akiva did not feel the pain.
During the Holocaust many many big Tzadikim were killed. Only Mashiach can provide us with a clear explanation and answer all of our questions.
In the Chumash it says
וידום אהרן
אהרן הכהן
The timing seems suspicious now that the FBI has been politicized.
Addict: Your argument is specious. If it were correct, then talking during davenen would have to provably result in torture or death.
To Mr. Coffee:
Your reply to Ari was really on the mark.
Wishing everyone a healthy winter.
Good Shabbos
This is what happens when the right is strong in Israel and there is no more galus and the Torah is in white cloth it comes to use in America this is also with the knowledge that netanyahu can have a government with Ganz and wants it with Ben gvir because gimel wants yeshiva with the krissos of the biet mikdash so I hope that even though Americans support and die for Israel five times maybe on paper the galus of the Arabs will stay there and not come to the innocent of America like China and Russia that want economy back to the chulent night
TO Ari Knobler
What you wrote is kefira. We don’t know Hashem’s cheshbonois for anything, yet chazal and seforim have said if you do certain things, it’s a segula. You may be 1000% right there were shuls that had zero talking, but the gemara says when Hashem gives permission for bad things to happen, he doesn’t differentiate between the good people and bad people.
Ari Knobler, the Tosfoso Yomtov said explicitly that the Chmelnitzky massacres (which were the worst thing that happened to us until the Holocaust) were caused by talking during davening. Do you have a problem with that?!
To . It is indeed ironic that you chose the screen name “.”, but in your comment you did not use a single period.
Ah Yid: No, it is NOT kefira to proclaim that Hashem does not kill or torture His children for talking during davenen.
Everything else you wrote is immaterial.
G-d is not a sadistic maniac. As such, He does NOT kill or torture His children for talking during davenen.
To have to say this is saddening.
As unpopular as the following may be, what unommin said also applies to the polio warnings. Also IMO, with the sewage rhetoric, a certain sector of govt has been pulling out all the stops in their attempt to rile up a 21st century alilas dam. If you think that farfetched, see what Wiesenthal Ctr. said re: Covid-19 and blood-libel. And why pick polio? Probably because vaxes for dreaded “P” are considered “respectable” by many rabbonim, who don’t see the need to research it further, due to its broad acceptance since the mid 1900s. And you better believe, the powers that be have been exploiting the knowledge that rabbonim (the ones who are listened to) don’t research the Net for vax literature. And that most probably don’t read books such as by Thomas Cowan MD, Forrest Maready, Neil Miller etc.