Cuomo, De Blasio Visit JCM
Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited the museum about 11:30 a.m. and toured it with its founder, Devorah Halberstan, who created it after her 16-year-old son was killed by a lone-wolf terrorist on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994 • Full Story
The Jewish Children’s Museum on Eastern Parkway was temporarily evacuated after someone emailed the museum to say three pipe bombs were going to imminently explode inside Thursday morning — the second threat in the city against a Jewish center this week, police said.
The threat was emailed to the museum, located across from 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish community, at about 9:15 a.m., an NYPD spokesman said.
The email said three pipe bombs had been planted inside so police evacuated everyone as they combed through, eventually reopening it to the public about 1:10 p.m. when no explosives were found, officials said.
David Shalom, the 71-year-old editor for the museum’s children’s magazine, said he was told he couldn’t go inside when he arrived to work.
“It’s concerning. You have to have faith in the almighty G-d. Nobody wants to live in fear,” Shalom said.
“There’s a big target. Thousands of Jews come here all the time,” he added.
Local politicians like the state’s attorney general rushed to condemn the Thursday threat.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited the museum about 11:30 a.m. and toured it with its founder, Devorah Halberstan, who created it after her 16-year-old son was killed by a lone-wolf terrorist on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994.
“This is one of the cruelest ironies yet in this rash of anti-Semitism that we’ve been experiencing. This is a museum that is a monument to tolerance,” Cuomo said as he stood beside Halberstan.
“Devorah, God bless her, felt that pain and put it into a positive place by building a museum of tolerance, saying we all have to live together. We all have to understand each other and we all have to accept one another,” the governor added.
Mayor Bill de Blasio also visited the museum about 1 p.m., but didn’t address reporters.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the Thursday threat or how it was connected to a broader rash of threats against Jewish organizations throughout the country.
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