By: Meyer Wolfsheim

City officials warned Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s incoming administration about the urgent need to install bollards and other protective measures at vulnerable houses of worship weeks before a car-ramming attack targeted the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in Brooklyn, as the NY Post reported.

According to information obtained by NY Post reported, a detailed security assessment dated Dec. 30 — just two days before Mamdani was sworn in as mayor — specifically recommended adding bollards and other hardening measures at high-risk religious sites across the city to prevent antisemitic attacks in 2026 and beyond.

The report was authored by Moshe Davis, executive director of the Mayor’s Office for Combating Antisemitism (MOCA), which was created under former Mayor Eric Adams. Among the locations flagged for heightened protection was the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, sources briefed on the matter told NY Post reported.

That same site was attacked last week when Dan Sohail, a 36-year-old New Jersey man, allegedly rammed his vehicle into the building’s doors five times during a religious celebration. Sohail was arrested and charged with hate crimes after video captured the violent incident, NY Post reported.

Under Adams, MOCA partnered with the Department of Transportation and the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Threats Reduction Infrastructure Protection Section to streamline the permitting process for installing bollards at houses of worship and reduce bureaucratic delays, the report noted, NY Post reported.

“The 2026 expansion proposes establishing a dedicated city budget line for bollard installation and other hardening measures at vulnerable institutions,” the report stated. “This mirrors previous successful iterations of such funding before resources were exhausted,” according to the NY Post report.

New York City has previously invested heavily in physical security infrastructure. In 2018, under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city committed $50 million to install more than 1,500 metal bollards citywide to prevent vehicle-ramming attacks, primarily in high-traffic tourist areas such as Times Square, major business corridors, and sites like St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

That initiative followed a string of terror attacks, including a deadly incident along the West Side Highway bike path where eight people were killed by a truck-driving attacker.

Community leaders in Crown Heights had also pushed years ago for a pedestrian plaza in front of the Chabad headquarters that would have incorporated bollards and planters as security barriers. The proposal, however, never advanced with City Hall, the NY Post reported.

“It could have helped prevent what happened,” said Rabbi Eli Cohen, director of outreach for the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council, who helped lead the earlier effort. “Hopefully now there’s renewed interest in the project,” he told the NY Post.

Another Crown Heights source familiar with the plan said broader community support was never fully secured at the time, despite the plaza being envisioned as a shared public space that could host events beyond religious use.

City officials said it remains unclear how much funding will ultimately be allocated for synagogue security, as budget negotiations are still underway. Even if approved, installation of new protective infrastructure would take several months.