Bomb Threats in the Naked City

It’s the email no parent wants to receive. “Emergency Building Evacuations,” read the subject line. “This morning, we were made aware of a threat to our school buildings.” My son texted me the missing detail: “We are in lockdown right now because there was a bomb threat.” For once, his phone served a positive purpose.

A couple of hours later, after a thorough search by the NYPD, the kids returned to their classes, though many parents had picked up their kids by then. It’s a private school; roughly half the kids are Jewish. It’s also one block south of a huge mosque. Rightfully, the parents were terrified. The school has security, but nothing like what synagogues and Jewish community centers have.

Many of us had lived through 9/11. Many of us had lived close enough to the Twin Towers that we lived with black smoke and endless helicopters for weeks. But very soon after the planes hit, the city began to unify, and most importantly, the local, state and federal governments took control of the situation: We soon felt safe.

Precisely the opposite has happened here since Oct. 7, beginning with the riot in Times Square on Oct. 8, days before Israel began to respond. 

Precisely the opposite has happened here since Oct. 7, beginning with the riot in Times Square on Oct. 8, days before Israel began to respond. Pro-Hamas riots here are daily — up at Columbia University, down at Washington Square Park, in the subways, on the bridges, in the streets.

But most egregious for most New Yorkers is what happened in December and then again last week: pro-jihad “disrupters” took over the World Trade Center, first outside the building and then in. It was both symbolic and “normalizing.” Any strong political leader would have condemned it, as well as all of the riots, with every threat available. But Mayor Eric Adams, who has repeatedly said he “stands with the Jewish people” said … nothing.

Five months after 9/11, I felt completely safe. Five months after Oct. 7 and I am trying hard not to be terrified.

Five months after 9/11, I felt completely safe. Five months after Oct. 7 and I am trying hard not to be terrified. Many of us have begun to call the city that has still not recovered from Governor Cuomo’s lockdown insanity: Jihad City.

At the same time that a bomb could have blown up my son’s school, Senator Chuck Schumer (D- N.Y.) thought it was a good idea to lambaste the Israeli government before Congress and then tweet: “NYC will receive a fresh $106M from feds to reimbursement for migrant costs.” That no doubt made every NYC parent feel so much safer. 

To say that the Democratic Party is clueless right now is an epic understatement. And it is precisely its embrace of terrorism, both here and in the Middle East, that led to a recent poll showing that Jewish New Yorkers prefer former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden by 9%. An astonishing shift—but anyone who lives here completely understands why. 

For decades we’ve been told that the increased violence during Ramadan stemmed from hunger. It never made sense — I personally have never felt a desire to blow up a building during Yom Kippur — but this was the prevailing explanation. The Yom Kippur War of 1973, in which Egypt and Syria slaughtered 2,700 Israelis in a surprise attack, occurred during Ramadan.  

Only this year the truth is beginning to emerge. “Egyptian and Syrian soldiers were given an exemption from fasting because they were engaged in the religious duty of killing infidels,” writes David M. Weinberg in the Jerusalem Post. The connection between violence and Ramadan goes back to the beginning of Islam, when, during that month, Muhammad won brutal victories over his enemies.

Needless to say, students in NYC schools will be taught none of this.  And while there’s no question that this city handled 9/11 better than it has handled Oct 7, perhaps a grave mistake was made in not taking a deeper look into what is being taught in mosques globally.

Meanwhile, parents in NYC were just given another reason to not trust the Democratic Party, though the growing Candace Owens contingent of the right continues its bizarre embrace of jihad. 

There’s no question that Europe is doing a better job controlling their pro-Hamas mobs than we are. At what point will U.S. elected officials have a “come to sanity” moment and begin to take this growing threat to not just Jews but to Western civilization seriously? Is it really going to take a school being blown up during Ramadan? Right now, all we hear is pro-Hamas virtue-signaling — or silence.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.