House Speaker Paul Ryan condemned the bomb threats and vandalism, calling them evil.
Jewish centers and day schools in at least a dozen states received threats Monday. (PHOTO BY ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES)
House Speaker Paul Ryan forcefully denounced a wave of bomb threats and vandalism at Jewish community centers, schools and cemeteries in recent months as the Department of Homeland Security increases its efforts to investigate and respond to the harassment.
"To think about parents getting those calls in the middle of the day, it makes your stomach turn. This is wrong," Ryan said Thursday. "These threats and these attacks on Jewish Americans are vile and disgusting. They are rooted in a poisonous ideology of hate, and they must be wholeheartedly rejected."
"On behalf of every Republican and every Democrat in Congress, on behalf of the whole House, I want our friends in the Jewish community to know that we stand with them," he told reporters. "We stand with you. We've got to stand together to root out this evil wherever it may surface."
On Wednesday night, DHS Secretary John Kelly announced the department had reached out to Jewish communities to offer "advice and support on protective measures they can put in place to help keep people in their community safe."
"Our counterterrorism professionals stressed the renewed community-level outreach on the part of DHS and provided information on federal assistance available," Kelly said in a statement. "These include a number of federal resources available, such as facility vulnerability assessments, as well as assistance to connect organizations with active shooter preparedness and bombing prevention training and guidance, tabletop exercises, protective measures, guides and other tools to strengthen security."
More than 100 Jewish community centers and schools have reported receiving threats this year, and while no bombs have been found nor has anyone been hurt, a bullet was apparently fired into a window at a synagogue in Indiana on Monday.
Over the weekend, more than 100 gravestones were toppled at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, the second time this year vandals have exacted such damage; a cemetery near St. Louis was targeted a week earlier.
Ryan's remarks and the elevated DHS response came after President Donald Trump was criticized for waiting to respond forcefully to the attacks and then did so only after he reportedly suggested the anti-Semitic threats could be a false flag by the Jewish community.
According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who attended a meeting with the president on Tuesday, Trump condemned the attacks but "suggested the 'reverse' may be true."
"I don't know what the president meant by that statement," Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a statement. But Karl Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, told The Washington Post there was "palpable unease" in the room when Trump said multiple times the "reverse" could be behind the threats.
Later on Tuesday, Trump opened his remarks before a joint session of Congress by condemning the attacks as well as the fatal shooting of two Indian mans near Kansas City last week.
"Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms," Trump said.
