Backpack Set On Fire On Steps Of Brooklyn Synagogue Over Yom Kippur
The interior of the Park Slope Jewish Center. Image by Courtesy of Park Slope Jewish Center
Updated 1:45 p.m.
(JTA) — A backpack was set alight and left on the steps of a Jewish center in Brooklyn on Yom Kippur.
The burning backpack on the steps of the Park Slope Jewish Center was reported at 1 a.m. on Wednesday, the New York Post reported. The New York City Fire Department extinguished the blaze.
An unidentified man was seen rummaging through the backpack and setting it on fire, the Post reported citing police sources.
An New York Police Department spokeswoman told the newspaper that the incident was considered a “non-bias incident” and that the Arson and Explosion Squad is investigating.
The Park Slope Jewish Center confirmed in a status posted to Facebook on Thursday that police told them that the incident was not bias related. “Rather, someone who had committed a crime nearby chose to burn the evidence on our steps,” they wrote. “Sadly, the timing led the media and others to assume we were being targeted on Yom Kippur but again, law enforcement have said that is NOT the case.”
Police throughout New York had increased patrols around synagogues for the Yom Kippur holiday.
Aiden Pink contributed reporting.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
