Jewish Community Center in Irvine Evacuated After Bomb Threat

Hat tip Miggie, Ami and Barry


Late yesterday afternoon, the Jewish Community Center in Irvine had to be evacuated due to a bomb threat, one of over 100 that have now been made recently to Jewish institutions. The evacuees included pre-schoolers.

http://community.jewishfederation.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=3831.0&dlv_id=7106

I have friends who are members of this community center. I even spoke there once on the issue of campus anti-semitism. This, coupled with the desecration of two Jewish cemeteries in St Louis and Philadelphia, are inexcusable and to be condemned in the strongest terms.

Chancellor Howard Gillman of UC Irvine notified the campus community with this message.

From the Chancellor 
 
    
 
TO THE ANTEATER COMMUNITY: 
 
The dramatic increase nationwide in threats of violence against Jewish 
schools, community centers and other organizations - 90 bomb threats 
since the start of the year and 20 just yesterday - hit close to home 
Monday afternoon when our neighboring Merage Jewish Community Center 
received a bomb threat and was forced to evacuate. 
 
These despicable demonstrations of violent anti-Semitism assault not 
only members of our Jewish community but all people of goodwill. Our 
Jewish students, faculty, staff, partners and neighbors should take 
strength from knowing that the UCI community stands with them during 
these troubling times. 
 
These events further illustrate the importance of the "Higher Ground" 
report [2] by our Office of Inclusive Excellence and its call to combat 
anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance and bigotry. Programming 
under the "Higher Ground" initiative [3] began earlier this year, and we 
will continue to work with our campus and community partners to 
overshadow hatred with education, research and open discussion. 
 
We respond to the darkness with the light of knowledge and mutual 
respect. In the face of violent threats, we add our voices to the chorus 
that declares we will not be intimidated as we pursue our mission to 
create and sustain a world in which diverse groups of people work 
together to advance our mutual well-being and common humanity. 
 
CHANCELLOR HOWARD GILLMAN  

Here is the Higher Ground report that Chancellor Gillman referenced. I will 


address it in a future posting.


I applaud the chancellor for his statement to the UCI community.