FBI Arrest Man Wanted In Threat To San Antonio Shuls

by Hamodia and CrownHeights.info

News broke over shabbos of a credible threat to the Jewish institutions of San Antonio, Texas. The alert, sent by the FBI, shut down some of the local shuls, but not the Chabad House.

Rabbi Chaim Block, Director of Chabad of San Antonio, one of two Orthodox shuls in a city with 15,000 Jews, spoke to Hamodia on Sunday about his experiences over the weekend.

“We received information from the FBI on Thursday that there was a threat to a Jewish institution in Texas, and we took some measures to increase our usual security procedures,” Rabbi Block says. “But when I walked to shul on Shabbos morning, a member of our security team had a message from the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, that the FBI had upgraded the alert because the person it was following was now in San Antonio.

“There was a recommendation that we close services, but I chose to continue services with enhanced security.”

Rabbi Block says the prayer services proceeded with a full shul and without incident.

It wasn’t until he and his congregants turned on their phones after Shabbos that they learned the suspect had been arrested and the FBI had downgraded the threat.

Rabbi Block says that while the shul already “has a robust security protocol,” it will seek to enhance it further “after this incident and recent other ones around the country,” including deadly shootings at a Pittsburgh conservative temple in 2018 and Chabad of Poway, California in 2019.

“The general spirit of our community is that we can’t cower and allow these elements to intimidate us,” Rabbi Block says. “We have to maintain our activities, while at the same time be responsible and increase our security accordingly.”