3 Los Angeles synagogues close on Shabbat over bomb threats
Police use K9 units to check for explosives, find none
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Three Los Angeles synagogue locations were temporarily closed after receiving bomb threats on Shabbat.
The threats were reported in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal on Saturday.
The affected synagogues were the University Synagogue in Brentwood, and both campuses of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple – the Erika J. Glazer Family Campus in Wilshire Center/Koreatown or the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Campus in West Los Angeles.
The synagogues were all closed around 8 a.m. on Saturday and cleared to reopen by about 12:45 p.m., Los Angeles Police Department Officer Mike Lopez told the Jewish Journal.
The LAPD used K9 units to check the buildings for bombs. No explosives were found at any of the locations.
The University Synagogue received its threat in an email, according to the report. The Wilshire Boulevard Temple received a threat via an online submission form on the synagogue’s website. All three buildings were empty when the threats were received.
The University Synagogue had a Torah study session scheduled for Saturday morning. When the members of the study group arrived and discovered the building closed, they moved about a block down the street and held it outside.
The bomb threats come some three months after an Israeli-American Jewish teenager was arrested at his home in Ashkelon in southern Israel and charged with makings hundreds of threats to Jewish institutions around the world, including more than 160 to JCCs, synagogues and Jewish organizations in the United States.
The Times of Israel Community.