Security At Rockville Jewish Center Remains High After Threats, Arrest

ROCKVILLE, MD — Increased security, including random bag checks of visitors to the Bender Jewish Community Center in Rockville, will continue even though police in Israel arrested a teenager Thursday in connection with a series of bomb threats made to Jewish Community Centers across North America.

Bender Jewish Community Center, located at 6125 Montrose Road, had to be evacuated following a bomb threat in early January. About 350 people were evacuated from the building, including 200 preschoolers.

The teenager arrested in Israel has not been identified, and it is unclear how many of the threats he has been linked to. JCCs in North America have received more than a 100 threats since January.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed the arrest of the suspect with dual Israeli-American citizenship, saying in a statement that the arrest was the culmination of a large-scale investigation spanning multiple continents for hate crimes against Jewish communities across the country.

"The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, and we will not tolerate the targeting of any community in this country on the basis of their religious beliefs. I commend the FBI and Israeli National Police for their outstanding work on this case,” Sessions said.

According to Montgomery Community Media, the CEO of the Bender Jewish Community Center, Michael Feinstein, said that while he was relieved at the arrest, it will not change much for the Rockville center.

Feinstein said there will still be random bag checks for people who are not JCC members and more security precautions at the center. “The new procedures that we put in place are our new standard because we’ve seen how easy it is to be disruptive,” he said.

Feinstein told Montgomery Community Media the caller who made the January bomb threat was a woman who claimed there was a bomb in the building. Sixteen other Jewish community centers in nine states across the country also received bomb threats that day, he said.

Feinstein said that he now knows someone could have used voice changing technology to sound different on the call.

Micky Rosenfield, a spokesman for the police in Israel, told the New York Times that the suspect made threats to institutions in Australia and New Zealand, as well as to a commercial airline flight, forcing an emergency landing. On Thursday, a judge ordered the teen held until at least March 30 and has imposed a gag order, forbidding authorities from releasing his name.

The suspect used “advanced camouflage technologies” to mask his identity and voice in the calls he allegedly made through the internet, according to the Times report.

>> See Related:

• UPDATE: Jewish Center In Rockville Reopens After Bomb Threat
• JCC Threats: More Than A Dozen Jewish Institutions Targeted Monday
• Annapolis Jewish Day School Target Of Bomb Threat: Police
• Bomb Threat Against Rockville Jewish School Investigated

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the suspect, who is in his late teens, was not drafted into the military because he was found unfit to serve. His motive is unknown, but police have accused him of hundreds of incidents involving threats to institutions around the world, including Israel, over a period of two or three years, Haaretz reports.

The executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington in Rockville, Ron Halber, said the bomb threats were very disturbing. “They inhibited our ability to educate our children and provide services at our institutions,” he said.

Halber also said he was sad that the Jewish teenager was the one making the calls to the Jewish institutions.

“History has shown one can be Jewish and anti-Semitic simultaneously,” Halber said.

This is the second arrest in connection with the threats made to JCCs across North America. Earlier this month, a disgraced former journalist was arrested by federal authorities who accused him of making threats to at least eight Jewish organizations, which he allegedly made to harass and intimidate an ex-girlfriend.

Additional reporting by Patch Editors Deb Belt and Feroze Dhanoa

Photo: Bender JCC of Greater Washington