Sherrod Brown Condemns Bomb Threat at Beachwood Jewish Community Center

BEACHWOOD, OH - Senator Sherrod Brown released a statement on Tuesday condemning a bomb threat against the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood. The threat prompted a search by Beachwood Police and security forces, including the use of bomb-sniffing dogs.

The threat was phoned in Feb. 20 at about 11:15 a.m. The JCC was one of 10 Jewish community centers nationwide to receive bomb threats that day. The center remained open during the search and kept the same hours despite the search of the building. The threats were eventually deemed not credible by law enforcement.

“Ohio will not tolerate efforts to intimidate or endanger our friends and neighbors. Every American has a responsibility to stand against acts of hate and threats of violence,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday. “I raised the growing number of hateful acts in Ohio and the rise of anti-Semitic rhetoric in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, and I am calling on President Trump to speak out against hate and stand with the Jewish community in denouncing these actions."

Trump did deliver a forceful condemnation of the threats against the nation's Jewish Community Centers, calling them "horrible" and "painful." CNN reports that he added that his tour was "a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms."

While this threat was deemed non-credible, it’s the latest in a long list of bomb threats that have been phoned in to 69 other Jewish Community Centers in the U.S. this year.

Patch is reporting that other Jewish community centers that received bomb threats on Feb. 20 include Houston, Texas' Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center and the Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin.

In addition to the bomb threats, there was also a slew of vandalism at a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis. Hundreds of headstones at the cemetery were overturned and left on the ground.

Photo from Sherrod Brown's Office