After recent bomb threats
Bomb threats prompt leaders at Maitland complex to act
at the Jewish Community Center in Maitland — and dozens of similar institutions throughout the nation — officials at the Central Florida site are taking action.
the first of three bomb threats targeted the Jewish Community Center in Maitland last month, teachers quickly ushered more than 300 preschoolers out the door using an evacuation drill they had practiced. Pushing a handful of cribs and shepherding toddlers down a sidewalk, the grown-ups led the kids in song and called the excursion a “nature walk.”
“The teachers were amazing,” said Samantha Taylor of Longwood, who was on campus for a volunteers’ meeting when her 3-year-old daughter and young classmates were evacuated. “They were calm and the kids were clueless — as they should be at that age.”
But after three threats in Janical uary alone — and dozens of threats at Jewish institutions around the nation — officials at the community center and its neighbors are doing more than putting on a brave face. In recent weeks, they’ve launched a fundraising campaign to expedite extensive campus security upgrades, some of which have already been installed.
Though no bombs were ultimately found in January’s incidents, the officials said, investigators have characterized the threatening calls as the product of sophisticated voice-masking technology — indicating they were not simply a widespread prank.
Local Jewish leaders called the threats an attack on “the very fabric of Jewish life” and said they are increasing uniformed security, installing physWhen barriers around the perimeter and entrances and adding controls at public-access points.
The Maitland complex, owned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, houses the Roth Family Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando and its preschool, the Jewish Academy of Orlando — a kindergarten through fifthgrade school — and the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida, an institution devoted to acceptance and respect.
“The irony is not lost on me,” said Executive Director Pam Kancher, who sees the threats as the result of a festering intolerance across the country. “But I’m saddened and shocked by all
that has happened to our nation. I’m a first-generation American … and I think my parents would be appalled by what has happened to the country that was so good to them.”
To Kancher’s knowledge, the threats have not led anyone to cancel field trips or other visits to the Holocaust center. And there have been no further incidents since January — a month when 57 bomb threats were made against Jewish centers in the U.S. and Canada.
But while most centers had a single threat, at the Maitland campus, the intimidation continued. And that prompted some parents to remove their children from the preschool, taking a financial toll on the institution.
“We already had security in place, and we’re probably the safest and most secure campus in Central Florida and quite possibly the entire state now,” said Keith Dvorchik, the community center’s CEO, who declined to say how many students had been withdrawn. “But there were three threats in 23 days, so there was never a chance for parents to process that.”
The center is hosting a socialmedia fundraiser on March 8 and 9, hoping to raise at least $200,000 to help the nonprofit break even for the year. And that’s in addition to the fundraising campaign for tighter security, an expenditure that leaders said simply wasn’t in the budget.
Taylor admits the threats rattled her, at least temporarily.
“After the third one, I turned to my husband and said, ‘Are we crazy for leaving our daughter there?’ And we very quickly came to the conclusion, no. I know she’s safe and I know she’s happy, so why should I disrupt her life and put her somewhere that’s not as good?”
Alan Rusonik, head of the Jewish Academy, said none of his 98 students has withdrawn in the wake of the threats, though he worries that a decade-long rise in antiSemitic attacks may eventually take a toll.
“Thankfully things have quieted down since January,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean we can afford to let our guard down. We always have to keep an eye out — that’s just part of the Jewish DNA, because of our history. It’s sad, but it’s the reality.”