(JTA) – The Guardian Angels, a private, unarmed crime-prevention group, has started patrolling in Brooklyn after an increase in antisemitic attacks in the area. The group’s founder, Curtis Sliwa, told NBC News that the patrols in the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Williamsburg and Borough Park came in the wake of at least eight attacks on Jews in Brooklyn since Dec. 13, hours before an attack on a Chanukah party at a Hasidic rabbi’s home in Monsey, in New York’s Rockland County, that left five injured, two seriously. Sliwa said local leaders of the Lubavitch-Chabad movement asked for his group’s help. “We’re a visual deterrence in our red berets and our red satin jackets,” he said. “Nobody’s going to commit an attack when we’re around.”