The 1989 firebombing of the Riverdale Press was an attack in which two firebombs were thrown at the offices of a weekly newspaper, the Riverdale Press, in the Riverdale community of the Bronx, New York City on February 28, 1989.[1][2] The building was heavily damaged. Two California bookstores were also damaged in similar attacks.[3]
The bombing took place shortly after the newspaper published an editorial defending Salman Rushdie during the controversy over The Satanic Verses.[4][5]
To those suspects, described by law enforcement officials as jailhouse converts to Islam and jihadi wannabes, the distinctions between Reform and Orthodox were either irrelevant or invisible.