Man Set Fire To Bag At Park Slope Jewish Center On Yom Kippur: PD

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A man lit his backpack on fire on the steps of the Park Slope Jewish Center in the early morning hours of Yom Kippur and then ran away, police said.

The man came up to the Jewish center's 1320 Eighth Ave. building just before 1 a.m. and set the contents of his backpack on fire, police said. The fire was safely extinguished and there were no injures.

Police are looking for the man on arson charges.

The incident came around the same time NYPD sent out extra patrols to New York City synagogues during the Jewish holiday.

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 extra security came as police grapple with the 170 antisemitic hate crimes reported in the city as of Sunday while Jewish New Yorkers observe their faith's holiest day.

Those antisemitic incidents account for more than half this year's 323 hate crimes and reflect a 53 percent uptick in attacks on Jews from the same time last year, police statistics show.

More than a quarter of the extra counterterrorism cops will be dispatched to Brooklyn, the apparent epicenter of the recent spate of hate crimes, police officials said. Greenpoint's 94th Precinct saw 18 reported hate crimes in the first six months of this year, more than any other precinct in the city, NYPD statistics show.

The Park Slope man was also not the only arsonist out on Tuesday night.

An arsonist in Manhattan tossed a Molotov cocktail at the historic Masonic Hall in the Flatiron District around 11:45 p.m., police said Thursday. The fire was extinguished and no one was injured, according to police.

Anyone with information in regard to the identity of this male is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.

Patch reporters Noah Manskar and Sydney Pereira contributed to this reporting.

Correction: A previous version of this story said that the arsonist had "targeted" the Park Slope Jewish Center. New information from police and the synagogue leaders showed that police believe the incident to not be a hate crime. The man was burning evidence from a nearby robbery. Full update can be found here.