Following Thursday’s arrest of Israeli teen Michael Kaydar, accused of making over 100 Bomb Threats against Jewish community centers and organizations worldwide, there remains many unanswered questions and worry among Jewish leaders that possible Holocaust denial and increasing anti-Semitism could arise. According to Steven Goldstein, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, his office has received E-mails claiming all reports of anti-Semitism are "fake.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, Anti-Defamation League CEO, says that it’s not the suspect’s identity that’s the issue, it is the fact that Jews were terrified by the actual threats, which Kaydar allegedly issued.
Anti-Semitic messages have been left with swastikas drawn in a New York subway, Greenblatt said. A synagogue in Seattle, WA, was has also been vandalized with a spray-painted message that said the Holocaust is a fake history.
Still baffled that Jewish teen is suspected of making false bomb threats
President and chief executive of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, MO, Andrew Rehfield, stated that finding out that the accused is Jewish is baffling. Some Jewish institutions in Missouri had also received bomb threats. After headstones had been toppled in February at Chesed Shel Emeth in University City, MO, Rehfield encouraged people get to know someone of a different faith by sharing meals or introducing themselves to a neighbor, setting aside fear and inflammatory rhetoric.
He said it’s important that people remember two things: that there are a lot of places where people can find alignment and that when people disagree with someone that it doesn’t make them bad or evil. It means people have different views and have to work them out.
Police, meanwhile, trying to find answers to suspects' possible motives
Israeli officers continue to probe for answers this weekend to learn why 19-year-old Kaydar allegedly issued false bomb threats against Jewish organizations globally. Cyber crime police are trying to discern if the teen suspected acted alone or with others, if he was compensated financially through Bitcoin digital, untraceable currency, finding suspicious “movements” in his bank account.
