A volunteer Jewish neighborhood safety group helped nab two teens who allegedly blasted a synagogue with gel guns this week — and the head of the organization said they are now patrolling 24/7 as their hotline has been inundated with calls since the Hamas attack on Israel.
Shmira Public Safety has seen a whopping 110% increase in phone calls as fear and crime has crept across Big Apple Jewish communities, Levi Leifer, the director of the organization, told The Post.
“People go into a panic mode,” Leifer said.
“We’ve all seen what happened in Times Square with the swastikas and all other stuff so people with minimal suspicions, they would call the hotline,” he added, referring to the pro-Palestine rally on Sunday where one attendee was pictured flashing a swastika on their phone.
One such call occurred Wednesday night when two teen boys allegedly shot gel pellets at a Brooklyn synagogue.
A caller contacted the patrol organization and within 20 minutes, the volunteers cornered the alleged baby-faced bigots.
“With the amount of volunteers we have that cover the area we cover, we were able to track them down and help identify them,” Leifer said.
Before Saturday’s deadly Hamas terrorist attack, the volunteers patrolled until the early morning hours. Now it’s around the clock, and the number of watchdogs — including retired volunteers, patrolmen on scooters — has also doubled.
Some of the phone calls turn out to be unsubstantiated “but some of them are serious,” Leifer said.
While hate crimes against Jews have decreased since last year, the latest numbers provided by the NYPD only include up until Sunday — a day after Hamas spread terror across the Jewish nation, leading to war with Gaza.
Overseas in the UK, anti-Semitic incidents have skyrocketed since then, the BBC reported, with “89 anti-Jewish incidents” occurring between Oct. 7th to the 10th.
