NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating two anti-Semitic incidents reported in Brooklyn on Saturday night, including an attack on two teens, as the department steps up its presence in Jewish communities.
In the first incident around 7 p.m., three men got out of a blue Toyota Camry and made anti-Semitic remarks to four Jewish men outside the Agudath Israel of 16th Avenue in Borough Park, police said.
The victims sought refuge inside the synagogue and the men banged on the front door before breaking a side mirror on a parked Audi nearby, according to police, who said the suspects fled in the Camry.
“Earlier today Orthodox Jews were harassed in front of this Shul on 16th Avenue by a group of males yelling ‘Free Palestine - kill all the Jews,’” Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein tweeted following the incident.
The NYPD released surveillance video of three suspects in the Borough Park incident on Sunday.
Less than an hour later, two Jewish teens were attacked by two men at Ocean Parkway and 18th Avenue on the border of Kensington and Midwood, police said.
The teens were punched and placed in a chokehold before they were chased by the men with baseball bats, according to police.
Former Assemblyman Dov Hikind said the teens were rescued by a Muslim Uber driver who drove them to safety.
The teens were treated by EMS at the 66th Precinct stationhouse, according to WABC, which reported that a blue Toyota Camry fled the scene of the attack.
The NYPD is investigating if the two incidents are connected.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Chief of Dept. Rodney Harrison met with Jewish community leaders in Borough Park on Sunday.
“Anti-Semitism isn’t just a threat to our Jewish community, it’s an attack on our entire city,” de Blasio tweeted after the meeting. “Today I joined community leaders in Borough Park to send a message: we won’t turn a blind eye to this hatred. It will be confronted. The perpetrators will be brought to justice.”
“The attacks we saw in Brooklyn last night were unconscionable,” the mayor continued. “They were pure, unbridled anti-Semitism. And we do not need to look too far back in history to know what happens if we let that hatred go unchecked.”
De Blasio said that the NYPD will increase its presence in Jewish communities and outside houses of worship in the days ahead.
The incident and other reports of harassment of Jewish New Yorkers stoked fears of anti-Semitic violence linked to the 11-day war between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
More than two dozen people were arrested on charges including hate crime assault after pro-Israel and pro-Palestine demonstrators clashed in Times Square on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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