New York City will install 100 new security cameras in neighbourhoods in Brooklyn with large haredi Orthodox Jewish populations.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the new security measure on Friday.
The neighbourhoods slated to get the cameras are Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park, the Associated Press reported.
The first 30 cameras are scheduled to be installed by March, and the remaining 70 will be installed with input about where to locate them from community representatives, the Brooklyn Paper reported.
“An attack on the Jewish community is an attack on all New Yorkers,” de Blasio said in a statement published by local media. “These new security cameras will increase the NYPD’s visibility into these neighbourhoods, and help our officers on the ground keep New Yorkers safe.”
The three neighbourhoods have been the sites of numerous anti-Semitic incidents ranging from verbal assault to physical attacks, including sucker punches and the ripping off of kippas and women’s head coverings.
Meanwhile, there has been an increase in applications filed by Orthodox residents of Rockland County for gun permits, the New York Post reported.
In the week following the Dec. 28 stabbing attack at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, New York, there were 65 new applications filed county-wide, with 23 from Monsey. All but five of the new applications came from within the heavily haredi town of Ramapo, which includes Monsey and other heavily Jewish areas, according to the Post. In the two months prior to the attack, an average of six applications a week were filed throughout the county, with only two from Monsey.
