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Police officers in Lakewood are usually extra vigilant as the High Holidays approach, but recent burglaries have given them even more reason to look out for the Jewish community’s security.

Two burglaries, an attempted burglary, and an act of vandalism took place in the Westgate neighborhood of Lakewood, a “completely Jewish community,” between 6:32 and 9:51 a.m. Aug. 19, Lakewood Police Lt. William Addison said.

The Lakewood Police Department sends extra patrols to Jewish areas around the time of the High Holidays and the start of school every year, Addison said. Rosh Hashanah falls this year on the night of Sept. 18.

News of the burglaries is particularly alarming for the police department considering that before these incidents, the township had experienced a 62-percent decline in burglary compared with year-to-date statistics from 2008.

“We are very, very concerned about this,” Addison said. “We’ve been doing a very good job, and then this pops up.”

In the first burglary, at Bais Medrash Synagogue on Kelm Woods Avenue, someone entered through an unlocked rear window, disturbed several sacred items, and took loose change. The second burglary was reported at a home on Kingsfield Drive, Addison said, where a person entered through a back window and took $42 in cash and coins.

Addison said that at two additional locations on Kingsfield Drive, a window was opened but no one entered in an attempted burglary, followed by a broken window in the last incident, reported as vandalism. The incidents remain under investigation, he said.

Israel Cohen, who lives on Kingsfield Drive, recalled that another burglary took place on the block about a year-and-a-half ago. “It’s always a concern this time of year,” Cohen said of security in the neighborhood.

About half of Lakewood’s population consists of Orthodox Jews. Given those demographics, the police department is always on the lookout for bias crimes, Addison said.

“We are very aware of our community and [the necessary] safety precautions,” he said.

In 2008, Lakewood police filed 13 reports of bias incidents against the Jewish community, including six incidents of harassment, three of vandalism, two threats, one burglary, and one incident of criminal mischief, according to department statistics.

Ocean County saw 28 anti-Semitic incidents in 2008, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit, the third highest among New Jersey’s nation-high 238 incidents. In addition to using official crime statistics for the audit, the ADL includes information provided to its regional offices by victims and community leaders.

Fear of anti-Semitism has been ramped up this year due to the involvement of Jews in high-profile scandals, including the Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff and the arrests of five rabbis from Deal and Brooklyn for money laundering in the FBI’s recent corruption busts.