Congregants and employees at Foster City’s Peninsula Sinai Congregation breathed a sigh of relief last Thursday when a suspiciously wrapped package containing white powder turned out to be nothing more than silver spice boxes for the temple gift shop and loose silver polish.
Members of the Foster City police and fire departments and the San Mateo County Hazardous Materials team cordoned off the synagogue for over an hour in the early afternoon.
Authorities didn’t allow anyone to enter the building, or the handful of temple employees within — including Rabbi Marvin Goodman and Cantor Doron Shapira — to leave.
“We applaud the decision of the workers in the temple for calling us,” said Lt. John Kiramis of the FCPD. “They did exactly what they should have done. By and large, what’s suspicious to the general public ends up being suspicious to us. People need to listen to their intuitions and if something’s out of the ordinary, always make the error on the side of being conservative. That means, call the police.”
Kiramis noted, however, that the package was apparently brought home by a temple employee before being brought back to Peninsula Sinai Congregation.
In the future, he said, one should leave a suspicious package where it is so as not to risk creating multiple potential cleanup sites.
The package — a large box containing smaller boxes — initially drew attention because scotch tape on its exterior looked as if it might have been unstuck and re-applied. When white powder was discovered within, temple employees called the police.
As is standard procedure, the police notified firefighters, who determined the package was suspicious enough to call the HazMat team. Wearing protective suits, the HazMat team tested the white powder in its remote laboratory, eventually determining it to be a polishing compound.
Most congregants are taking last Thursday’s events in stride.
“I don’t think this is a big deal. I think this was people being conscientious,” said Carol Schwalb, whose daughter, Ilana, had been scheduled to run through a bat mitzvah rehearsal last Thursday. “I wasn’t worried. I have faith everyone will handle this appropriately.”