A fifth Jewish institution in Seattle has received a suspicious envelope with powder. The package was discovered over the weekend and was seemingly sent to coincide with the Sabbath.
The contents of the package sent to Chabad of Capitol Hill & the Central Area on 18th Avenue East are not hazardous, Seattle Fire Department said Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Four other Jewish centers received similar envelopes: Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, the Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, Congregation Shaarei Tefilah-Lubavitch and Hillel at the University of Washington. The package sent to the Jewish campus organization did not contain any white powder.
While the substances have been harmless, the suspicious packages were especially frightening against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which began with an attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 and has seen the continued bombardment and invasion of Gaza, causing many Seattle-area Jews to feel on edge amid a sharp rise in antisemitism.
And as elections workers hurriedly counted ballots during major elections the same week, they were interrupted and forced to evacuate due to similar packages.
Six counties in Washington state — King, Skagit, Spokane, Pierce, Snohomish, and Thurston — received packages with white powder, some with traces of fentanyl. Nobody was harmed, but the mail was viewed as a disruption to the election process.
The FBI is now leading an investigation into the letters to try to discover who is responsible for sending them and why they were sent. The FBI is the lead federal agency for responding to threats and potential threats from weapons of mass destruction, which includes weapons containing biological agents, poisonous chemicals or toxins, according to the agency’s website.