NEW YORK (JTA) — The New York Police Department is increasing its security at synagogues and Jewish sites for Passover.
The NYPD said it was taking precautionary measures beginning this week in the wake of last month’s attack on a religious school in France, which left three children and a rabbi dead, The Associated Press reported.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly reportedly told the city’s Jewish leaders that they would be “adding foot posts, visits by officers to synagogues, outreach by community affairs officers and a heightened presence of anti-crime.” Kelly also said there would be heightened security and the deployment of heavily armed roving counterterrorism units.
The NYPD said the extra measures are not due to specific threats or connected to this week’s investigation of an online mock movie poster warning that al-Qaida will return to New York City, which has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
