Long Island police increase security amid nonspecific antisemitic threats

While there were no direct threats linked to a "National Day of Hate" planned by white supremacists on Saturday, police on Long Island were not taking any chances and boosting security at religious institutions across the region.

Hate groups had threatened antisemitic actions but there were no specific risks, including in New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, according to officials and the Anti-Defamation League. 

Researchers at the Counter Extremism Project first learned about the Feb. 25 "National Day of Hate" after locating posts made by neo-Nazi groups on a tech platform called Telegram, which is used by extremists to recruit and coordinate events, the nonprofit organization said in a release.

Participants are part of the National Socialist Movement, but other white supremacist groups also were pushed to spread propaganda, including with stickers, flyers and graffiti, and by sending recordings of antisemitic rallies to a Telegram account, according to the nonprofit. 

While there were no known threats to Jewish communities in the state, Gov. Kathy Hochul requested State Police and the division of Homeland Security to be on alert for the Sabbath.

Antisemitism is on the rise nationally, according to a survey conducted by ADL, and Long Island last year saw a number of hateful incidents, including antisemitic flyers tossed at homes in Rockville Centre, Oceanside and Long Beach.

As a precaution, Suffolk County and Nassau County police were increasing patrols at synagogues and other places of worship. Officials said the extra measures were being taken to make sure everyone is safe. 

“I am confident that our Police Department is ready in the event there is any violence or intimidation which will not be tolerated,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said in a statement.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone also directed the police department to ramp up patrols. “Hate or bigotry of any kind have absolutely no place in Suffolk County,” Bellone said in a statement.

In a show of solidarity, Hochul attended a service Saturday at the Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, in Manhattan, the world’s largest LGBTQ synagogue, where there also was increased police presence, said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum.

Kleinbaum said members of the Beit Simchat Torah, many of whom are vulnerable or have experienced homophobia and anti-gay violence, are rattled by these recent threats and remain on high alert.

“People are very, very concerned and scared,” Kleinbaum said. “But we can't let hate win when love is the most powerful response.”

Hochul also told the over 200 congregants, including interfaith leaders, that there is strength in numbers.

“You are not alone. … There are 20 million New Yorkers who are with you today and every day as we stand up and call out antisemitism and racism and homophobia and all the other isms, because there's still far more of us than there are of them, and I want them to know that,” Hochul said.

Rabbi Shlomo Naparstek of Chabad of the Beaches, based in Long Beach, said that while his community takes threats "very seriously," they also never let threats "define our feelings or define ourselves as a people, and our approach."

"We have a very forward-facing vision and we don't really let comments and threats online define the way we operate and define the way we react," he said. 

His synagogue held its own "National Day of Love" on Saturday, an event organized around the belief in not only "standing against all hate," Naparstek said, but "in turning around and positing into the world an infinite amount of love."

"If you see a hateful comment on your social media feed, take that very same social media feed and use it to give a compliment and a positive comment to someone else," he said. "If you're walking in the street and someone hurls at you an insult, the next stranger you see down the block, give them a compliment."

"That is the message we have today from our National Day of Love at the synagogue here in Long Beach," he added.

With Brianne Ledda