Four Anti-Defamation League offices, including one on Piedmont Road in Buckhead, received bomb threats Tuesday, the nonprofit’s CEO said.
The Atlanta, Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., offices received threatening telephone calls on the same day a school and four Jewish Community Centers were targeted in a new round of nationwide threats.
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“This is not normal,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement posted on Twitter. “We will not be deterred or intimidated.”
There has been a rise in anti-Semitic incidents reported across the nation in recent months. Since early January, there have been 121 other incidents, including bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and Jewish schools and the toppling of dozens of headstones in Missouri, the ADL said.
The Atlanta threat “was on a loop repeating 'there is bomb' several times,” police spokeswoman Officer Lisa Bender said.
The office was evacuated by ADL staff.
“Building personnel and APD officers conducted a sweep of the building and did not locate any suspicious items,” Bender said. “Homeland Security responded and obtained information for follow-up investigation.”
Greenblatt called on President Donald Trump “to take concrete steps to catch those threatening the Jewish community,” a sentiment echoed by 100 senators who asked the administration Tuesday to offer help to Jewish Community Centers and other Jewish institutions, according to Politico.
The Anti-Defamation League, which was founded in 1913 "to stop the defamation of the Jewish people” and advocate for justice, was one of seven organizations that endorsed the senators’ bipartisan plea, Politico reported.
Meanwhile, the FBI and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division are investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with the threats.
“The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence, and will ensure this matter is investigated in a fair, thorough and impartial manner,” said Stephen Emmett, the spokesman for the FBI’s Atlanta field office.
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