(JTA) – On Jan. 9, a coordinated wave of bomb threats was called in to Jewish communal organizations along the U.S. East Coast and in metro London, UK. Despite evacuations of the 16 American Jewish Community Centers (JCC) and three London-area Jewish day schools, investigating authorities reported that none of the warnings proved to be credible. Several non-Jewish schools in metro London also received telephoned bomb threats, according to the British Jewish Chronicle news site.

The JCCs affected ranged from one in northern New Jersey to several in the Southeast – including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. In addition, JCCs in Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee and Pennsylvania received threats. Several Jewish institutions also received bomb threats during the first week of January.

Stamford JCC

In response to the bomb threats, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been assisting all JCCs in bolstering security. On Jan. 11, officials from the FBI and Homeland Security conducted a conference call with U.S. Jewish communal leaders to discuss the incidents and ways to craft protocols to handle future occurrences. Some communities already receive federal grants to provide for security.

The simultaneous threats were unprecedented, according to Paul Goldenberg, the director of the Secure Community Network, a group affiliated with the Jewish Federations of North America that coordinates security for the Jewish community.

“We’re in a completely different world now than we were a couple years ago,” Goldenberg told JTA. “What is unprecedented is in the shortest period of time we received a substantial number of bomb threats. These offenders are leveraging technology to intimidate and/or terrorize communities.”

While the three Connecticut JCCs were not among those targeted, leaders took prompt action to ensure and assess security measures in their respective facilities.

Greater New Haven JCC

Staff members of the Stamford JCC met with local law enforcement to review the facility’s emergency action plan, and also met with the Stamford Police Department bomb squad, according to the Center’s CEO Eric H. Koehler. “We held a comprehensive staff training in the fall to review our emergency action plan and the police are scheduled to return to update the plan with our staff,” he says.

“This week, we also participated in the Secure Community Network webinar following the [Jan. 9] incidents.”

“We take incidents like this very seriously, and under the direction of our security director, Jim Schwab, we work with our employees on preparedness and response,” says David Jacobs, executive director of the Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford. The organization recently brought in the ALICE (Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evacuate) Training Institute to conduct a two-day seminar for staff from the JCC and other Greater Hartford community institutions.

“The JCC has an excellent relationship with the West Hartford Police Department and we receive regular updates from the Secure Community Network and the Anti-Defamation League,” says Jacobs. “I commend my colleagues at the JCCs for their quick and thorough response to the [Jan. 9] events, and the local and national law enforcement agencies that aided them.”

The JCC and Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven were recently relocated to interim facilities in the wake of the Dec. 5 fire that rendered the Woodbridge building temporarily uninhabitable.

“We are using [the] unfortunate events to remind all of our staff of the telephonic threats procedures that we updated during a summer workshop for frontline personnel,” says Judy Alperin Diamondstein, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven. “Given our circumstances of being spread throughout our catchment area due to the fire, we do not currently have one central address. But we do have operations in multiple locations and are reviewing procedures and scheduling drills. This was our pattern before the fire as well and what we credit with why we had no injury or loss of life when the fire occurred. I hope all our friends and colleagues stay safe in what has unfortunately become the new normal.”

This article includes additional reporting by Cindy Mindell.

CAP: Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford