NJ synagogues on alert after FBI receives ‘credible information of a broad threat’

NEWARK, N.J. — The FBI said on Thursday it had received credible information about a “broad” threat to synagogues in New Jersey.

The FBI’s Newark office released a statement urging synagogues to “take all security precautions to protect your community and facility.”

More specific details weren’t released, and a message was left with the FBI.

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 three people in a kosher market in Jersey City, along with a police officer.

The threat comes amid continued and growing incidents of antisemitism in the United States and beyond. 

The Anti-Defamation League recorded 2,717 incidents of harassment, vandalism or violence targeting Jews in 2021 — the highest annual total since it began tracking these incidents in 1979.

“We don’t see any meaningful decrease in 2022,” added Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO.

Last month, Pittsburgh’s Jewish community Thursday honored the memory of the 11 Jews who were murdered on the fourth anniversary of the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

The Tree of Life shootings claimed the lives of 11 worshippers from the host congregation and two other congregations worshipping in its building, Dor Hadash and New Light.

It was followed by deadly attacks at a synagogue in California, a kosher market in New Jersey and a Hanukkah house party in New York, and by a hostage standoff at a Texas synagogue — each committed by assailants who targeted Jews, authorities said.

RELATED: Antisemitism decried four years after Pittsburgh synagogue attack

Last month, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West was dropped by Adidas and other partnerships after weeks of antisemitic comments in interviews and on social media, including a Twitter post that he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” an apparent reference to the U.S. defense readiness condition scale known as DEFCON. He was suspended from both Twitter and Instagram. 

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president for the Union for Reform Judaism, said Ye’s words come amid a rise in antisemitism “from the right and the left and pretty much across the spectrum.”

RELATED: Adidas drops Ye after antisemitic comments, expected to lose $250M by year’s end