Some Jewish Community Centers in the tri-state area were told to evacuate as a precaution Tuesday as authorities investigated reports of bomb threats at the religious centers for at least the third time this month.
JCC MetroWest in West Orange, New Jersey, sent out an email to members around noon indicating everyone at the building was safe and asking people to stay away as authorities investigated. A later email said the JCC received a threatening phone call that was later determined to be unfounded.
The JCC of Greater New Haven in Woodbridge, Connecticut, was also evacuated after receiving a threat Tuesday, and a JCC in Syracuse was targeted as well. Centers in Colorado, California and Utah were also evacuated.
Tuesday's scare is the latest in a series of bomb threats targeting JCCs across the country this month. Sixteen centers, including MetroWest, were threatened in nine states on Jan. 9, according to Marla Cohen, communications manager for the New-York based, JCC Association of North America.
Nine days later, Cohen said, 28 centers in 17 states were threatened. She said some of the threats came in as robo dialers and some were actual people. The FBI was assisting in the probe.
There were no injuries or actual explosives reported found following the earlier bomb threats.
