Crown Heights Field Trips Bring Focus On Hate Crimes Education

CROWN HEIGHTS, NY — Thousands of Brooklyn students soon will visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage as part of a city push against a spate of recent anti-Semitic crimes.

All eighth- through 10th-grade students from Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park will go on the field trips, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.

The museum is billed as "A Living Memorial to the Holocaust" and currently features an extensive exhibition on Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where one million Jews were systematically slaughtered.

Recent attacks against Jewish people in Brooklyn carried unfortunate echoes of this dark chapter in human history and prompted city officials to launch a hate crime prevention effort.

NYPD officers first went on expanded patrols in Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park — three neighborhoods with large Jewish populations where the worst attacks unfolded. Cameras and light towers were also installed.

But education also formed a plank in the plan.

City and Department of Education officials expanded a partnership with the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a press release states.

The field trips will bring 14,000 students from the three neighborhoods into the museum, according to the release. Trips can start "immediately," a DOE spokesperson said.

The partnership will also expand free visits to all public school students 12 and up and three of their family members, the release states. Museum staff will also work to bring Holocaust survivors into schools and provide professional development for teachers.