Police have given the all clear after a bomb threat was reported at the Gordon Jewish Community Center in Nashville.
Emergency dispatchers with the Metro Nashville Police Department confirmed the incident was reported Monday morning at the center located on Percy Warner Boulevard.
About 100 people were inside when the threat was reported and were forced to evacuate, including children who attend a preschool located on the property.
Many people, including those children, were safely transported to a different site.
Leaders with the center said the threatening phone call forced all activities to stop for about two hours.
"We're in an age where people feel that they want to cause maximum disruption and anxiety and fear among law abiding people," said Mark Freedman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee. "Whether they're coming to the JCC or they're going to a store or to the airport, I just consider this a form of domestic terrorism."
Freedman has worked for the Jewish Federation in Nashville for five years and said this is the first bomb threat he has experienced in that time.
"Naturally the first response would be to be angry. But really, in some respects, these people are pitiful in the way they behave and act," Freedman said. "That they have nothing better to do with their lives than to just threaten the lives of other people, whether it's a hoax or not."
Several other threats were made at Jewish centers across the country, Monday, including two in Miami. There, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue evacuated 450 children and 70 adults from the Alper Jewish Community Center.
Additionally, several Jewish schools in the United Kingdom were placed on lockdown Monday because of similar threats.
There was no known link between the threats as of Monday afternoon.
