Park Slope Jewish Center Arson Not Hate Crime, Cops Say

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A man who set fire to a backpack on a synagogue's steps on Yom Kippur does not appear to have been motivated by bias, police and synagogue leaders said.

The man had set the backpack on fire on the steps of the Park Slope Jewish Center's 1320 Eighth Ave. building just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, police said.

Police had originally released no other details about the incident, but told Patch Friday that the arson investigation is also related to a nearby burglary. The man appears to have stolen the backpack and lit it on fire to try and get rid of the evidence, an NYPD spokesperson said.

The crime does not appear to be a hate crime given that the man seems to have chosen the Jewish Center for convenience, not due to bias, police and synagogue leaders said.

"The police have assured us that this was not a bias crime," the synagogue wrote on its Facebook page. "...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."

The NYPD spokesperson did not have details about where the backpack was stolen from. The fire was safely extinguished and there were no injures.

The Jewish Center did not immediately return a request for comment.

The incident came around the same time NYPD sent out extra patrols to New York City synagogues during the Jewish holiday as a precaution for attacks that, unlike the Park Slope incident, were motivated by bias.

The police department planned to send about 130 counterterrorism officers and up to 25 extra patrol cars to synagogues starting Tuesday evening, Chief of Department Terence Monahan said. The police had grappled with 170 antisemitic hate crimes reported in the city as of Sunday, a 53 percent uptick in attacks on Jews from the same time last year, police statistics show.