NYC Jewish Sites Hit With Bomb Threats

NEW YORK (New York Daily News/TNS) — Reported bombs at separate Jewish sites caused alarm on Saturday and prompted an New York Police Department response as antisemitic incidents sparked by the war in Gaza continue to rise, police said.

First, police were called to Holocaust Memorial Park on West End Avenue in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, just before 10 a.m. when someone walking through the park found a grenade among the markers dedicated to Jews killed during the Nazi regime.

The NYPD Bomb Squad was called and ultimately cleared the scene after the grenade was found to be inert, an NYPD spokesman said.

No one was injured and no arrests were made.

Less than an hour later, someone texted 911, claiming that he had left two backpacks filled with pipe bombs inside a temple on Lexington Avenue near East 54th Street in Midtown.

Cops responded to the scene, but found nothing, cops said. The building wasn’t evacuated.

The two incidents came as hate crimes against Jews in the city have nearly tripled during the monthlong war in Israel.

Since Oct. 7, when brutal attacks on Israeli communities near Gaza sparked the ongoing conflict, the NYPD has investigated 82 antisemitic incidents, 31 more than the previous year. That’s a jump of 164%, cops said.

Throughout October, 69 antisemitic incidents were reported in the city, compared to 22 in October 2022 — a 214% increase, officials said.

Blowback from the war in Israel is a daily concern for Jewish New Yorkers, Bob Moskovitz, executive coordinator of the Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol in Brooklyn, told the Daily News Wednesday.

“We’re feeling it 100%,” Moskovitz said of the uptick in hate crimes. “Our hotline, which the community utilizes to report any incident has probably increased in this last month and a half by 300%. The phone is simply not stopping.”