Islamic State Threatens Jewish Museum Over Kurdish Event
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
NEW YORK (JTA) — Police increased security at a Jewish museum here after the Islamic State reportedly suggested it as a target for attack for hosting an event about Kurds fighting the terrorist group.
The threats against the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust are unsubstantiated, but security was increased Sunday and Monday as a precautionary measure, NBC reported.
NBC said the recordings had suggested targeting the museum because of a “Kurdish exhibit opening Monday.”
The museum is not hosting a Kurdish-themed exhibition, Lisa Safier, the museum’s communications director, told JTA. It is, however, screening a movie Monday evening about Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State. Safier declined to comment on the report of the threats.
The film’s director, Bernard-Henri Levy, a prominent French-Jewish public intellectual, will be present at the screening of “Peshmerga,” for which he traveled to Iraq to meet with the fighters.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
