The San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) today condemned bomb threats against over two dozen Jewish community centers and schools nationwide, including the Bay Area. The Osher Marin Jewish Community Center and Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City also received threats via telephone causing the centers and associated schools to be evacuated. Police officers, bomb squad technicians, and K-9 units searched and cleared the buildings.
SEE: Bay Area Jewish Community Centers, schools reopen after hoax bomb threats
“American Muslims stand in solidarity with the Jewish community in the Bay Area and throughout the country,” said CAIR-SFBA Executive Director Zahra Billoo. “We all have the right to worship freely without fear of intimidation and we will defend that right for our Jewish neighbors.”
Also today, CAIR’s New York chapter condemned a similar threat made against a Jewish community center in that state.
SEE: CAIR-NY Condemns Bomb Threats Against Syracuse, NY Jewish Community
Late last month, CAIR’s national office expressed solidarity with Montana’s Jewish communities after neo-Nazis announced plans to stage an armed, anti-Semitic march in that state. In that case, a leader of the neo-Nazi movement announced plans for the hate march in Whitefish, Montana “against Jews, Jewish businesses and everyone who supports either.”
SEE: CAIR Expresses Solidarity with Montana Jewish Community as Neo-Nazi Plans Armed Anti-Semitic March
That same month, CAIR’s Greater Los Angeles Area chapter expressed similar solidarity with the Christian community in that state following apparent hate vandalism targeting an Assyrian church in San Fernando, Calif.
CAIR and the American Muslim community has in the past expressed solidarity with Jewish, Christian, Native American, African-American, and Sikh communities in New Mexico, Florida, South Carolina, Maryland, Alabama, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Ohio, Texas, and other states following acts of hate, violence, vandalism, arson, or bombings.
CAIR’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., has noted an unprecedented spike in hate incidents targeting Muslims and other minority groups since the November 8 election.