Security is being ramped up for the first night of Hanukkah in New York City and Los Angeles as law enforcement agencies went on high alert following a mass shooting at a Jewish celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia, Sunday that killed 11 people in what New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said was an attack “designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community on the first day of Hanukkah.”
The New York City and Suffolk County, New York, police departments announced on Sunday that extra officers are being deployed to local Hanukkah events.
New York law enforcement officials said that while there have been no credible threats locally connected to the mass shooting in Australia, extra officers will be patrolling public Hanukkah celebrations “out of an abundance of caution.”
Hanukkah, which lasts eight days and is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays, begins at sundown on Sunday…