FBI Warns of Broad Threat to New Jersey Synagogues
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The FBI said Thursday it has received “credible information of a broad threat to synagogues” in New Jersey.
“We ask at this time that you take all security precautions to protect your community and facility,” the FBI’s field office in New Jersey wrote in a tweet. “We will share more information as soon as we can. Stay alert. In case of emergency call police.”
The FBI has received credible information of a broad threat to synagogues in NJ. We ask at this time that you take all security precautions to protect your community and facility. We will share more information as soon as we can. Stay alert. In case of emergency call police. pic.twitter.com/e64XSmQvNc
— FBI Newark (@FBINewark) November 3, 2022
“We are taking a proactive measure with this warning while investigative processes are carried out,” the agency added in a separate tweet.
New Jersey governor Phil Murphy said he has been in touch with the FBI, the state’s Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness and the state attorney general regarding the threats.
“We are closely monitoring the situation and are working with local law enforcement to ensure that all houses of worship are protected,” Murphy wrote in a tweet.
I have been in touch with the @NewJerseyOAG, @njohsp, and @FBINewark regarding a credible threat to synagogues in NJ.
We are closely monitoring the situation and are working with local law enforcement to ensure that all houses of worship are protected.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) November 3, 2022
It was not immediately clear what the nature of the threat was.
The warning comes amid a rise in antisemitic incidents in the past several years; the Anti-Defamation League recorded 2,717 incidents last year — the highest number of record since it began tracking such incidents in 1979.
In October 2018, a gunman killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa. Earlier this year, a British national took a rabbi and three other people hostage at a Texas synagogue during Shabbat services while demanding the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of attempting to murder U.S. soldiers while in their custody in Afghanistan in 2010. FBI officials said at the time that the Texas hostage situation was an “act of terrorism” and a “federal hate crime.”
