Police have received at least eight reports since 13 December of attacks possibly propelled by anti-Jewish sentiment

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

New York City is increasing its police presence in some Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Jewish populations after possibly antisemitic attacks during the Hanukkah holiday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said after the latest episode happened on Friday.

Besides making officers more visible in Borough Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg, police will boost visits to houses of worship and some other places, the mayor tweeted.

“Antisemitism is an attack on the values of our city and we will confront it head-on,” the Democrat wrote. He went later on Friday to Crown Heights and met with some representatives of the local Jewish community.

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Around the city, police have gotten at least six reports this week – and eight since 13 December – of attacks possibly propelled by anti-Jewish bias.

“It’s something that’s very alarming, and we treat it very seriously,” Rodney Harrison, police chief of detectives, said at a news conference Friday.

The latest incident happened around 12.40am Friday, when a woman slapped three other women in the face and head after encountering them on a Crown Heights corner, police said. The victims, who range in age from 22 to 31, suffered minor pain, police said.

Tiffany Harris, 30, was arrested on a hate-crime harassment charge.

Her arrest came hours after a hate crime assault arrest in Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighborhood. There, police said, a woman was hit in the face with a bag by an attacker who made antisemitic comments on Thursday afternoon. The victim, 34, was with a three-year-old boy.

The suspect in Thursday’s attack, Ayana Logan, 42, and Harris were both awaiting arraignment Friday. It wasn’t clear whether they had lawyers who could comment on the charges, and no working telephone numbers for the suspects could immediately be found.

On Monday, a Miami man was charged with hate-crime assault after police said he made an antisemitic remark and attacked a man in midtown Manhattan. The 65-year-old victim was punched and kicked, suffering cuts, police said.

He had been wearing a yarmulke, according to the former state assemblyman Dov Hikind, who has founded a group dedicated to combating antisemitism.

Steven Jorge, 28, is being held without bail, and a judge ordered a psychiatric exam for him, court records show. A message was left Friday for Jorge’s lawyer.

Governor Andrew Cuomo told a state hate crimes taskforce to help police investigate the attack, calling it “a horrific and cowardly act of antisemitism”.

“It’s even more despicable that it occurred over the holidays,” the Democratic governor said in a statement Wednesday. Hanukkah began Sunday.

The New York police department’s hate crime taskforce is also investigating some other episodes this week as possibly motivated by antisemitism: