Bomb Threat At Anti-Defamation League's Manhattan HQ: State Police To Investigate

MURRAY HILL, NY — An anonymous bomb threat was called into the Anti-Defamation League's NYC headquarters at 605 3rd Ave. on Wednesday morning, following a rash of bomb threats to Jewish centers throughout the country, according to police.

There is "no information at this time to indicate that this is more than a threat," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

Still, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has directed New York State Police to investigate the threat in tandem with local and federal law enforcement.

"The anonymous bomb threat to the Anti-Defamation League's national headquarters this morning is unacceptable, un-American and — disturbingly — increasingly common," Cuomo said in a statement. "This despicable act of anti-Semitism completely contradicts the values we hold dear as New Yorkers. This is now a national crisis as a troubling pattern of recent anti-Semitic threats have been directed at Jewish Community Centers on a regular basis, including Buffalo, New York City, Albany, and Syracuse."

The governor continued: ""We are treating these incidents for what they are — as crimes — and we will not allow them to go unpunished."

The Anti-Defamation League, meanwhile, is "working with law enforcement officials to determine if it is connected to similar threats against Jewish institutions across the country," the group's CEO said.

The threat was called into ADL's Murray Hill headquarters at 11:08 a.m. Wednesday, according to police.

"We are investigating a possible bomb threat," an NYPD spokeswoman told Patch on Wednesday afternoon. "I don't have any details yet, it's too soon."

Earlier in the week, on Monday, 11 Jewish community centers across the country received bomb threats — all of which were determined to be hoaxes, according to the Jewish Community Center Association of North America.

“While we are relieved that all such threats have proven to be hoaxes and that not a single person was harmed, we are concerned about the anti-Semitism behind these threats, and the repetition of threats intended to interfere with day-to-day life," the association wrote in a statement on Tuesday.

Including Monday's wave of threats, there have been 68 bomb threats at 53 different Jewish community centers in the U.S. and Canada in 2017.

President Donald Trump has largely avoided commenting on the uptick in anti-Semitic incidents since his election. He recently told a Jewish reporter who asked about the hate incidents to "sit down."

On Tuesday, though, Trump did tell NBC News: "Anti-Semitism is horrible, and it's gonna stop and it has to stop."

This story has been updated to include additional details.

Image via Wikimedia Commons.