More police sent to Jewish areas

New York City is increasing the police presence in some Brooklyn neighbourhoods with large Jewish populations after possibly anti-Semitic attacks during the Hanukkah holiday.

As well as making officers more visible in Borough Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg, police would make more visits to houses of worship and other places, Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted yesterday. He later went to Crown Heights and met with representatives of the local Jewish community.

Police across the city have received at least six reports this week – and eight since December 13 – of attacks possibly fuelled by anti-Jewish bias.

The latest incident happened yesterday, when a woman slapped three other women in the face and head after encountering them on a Crown Heights corner, police said. A 30-year-old woman was arrested on a hate crime harassment charge.

The incident came just hours after another hate crime assault arrest in Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighbourhood. Police said a woman was hit in the face with a bag by an attacker who made anti-Semitic comments.

On Tuesday, a Miami man was charged with hate crime assault after police said he made an antiSemitic remark and punched and kicked a 65-year-old man wearing a yarmulke in midtown Manhattan.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has told a state hate crimes task force to help police investigate the attack.

The New York Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force is also investigating other assaults this week as possibly being motivated by anti-Semitism. One involved two boys, aged 6 and 7, who were accosted by a group of people while getting out of an elevator in a Williamsburg apartment building.