As anti-Semitic Acts Surge, U.S. Jewish Groups Take Security Into Their Own Hands
To cope with bomb threats and vandalism, community has created a national council headed by a homeland security official and tightened ties with FBI and local law enforcement – while advising fearful members of other faiths.
In 2004 a nonprofit called Secure Community Network was created by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Last week SCN launched a national security advisory council, chaired by Alejandro Mayorkas, a former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Its goal: to strengthen ties between SCN and local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in their dealings with the U.S. Jewish community.
In a related move, Jewish communal leaders – including JFNA CEO Jerry Silverman, SCN director Paul Goldenberg and Posner of the JCCA – met on March 3 with FBI Director James Comey.
“Representatives of the Jewish community left with the highest confidence that the FBI is taking every possible measure to resolve the matter as quickly as possible,” said a statement issued afterward.
“This is a difficult case because of the technology,” the JCCA’s Posner said in an interview, about the telephone hoaxes. “Anything you can do with a computer you can do with a digitized phone system,” which is why those making the calls succeed in masking their voices and avoiding identification.
The American Jewish “community has had a very, very challenging two months,” said SCN’s Goldenberg.
Between January 1 and February 20, the SCN reported last week, there were 176 anti-Semitic hate incidents in 37 states – i.e., assaults, bomb threats, cyberattacks, vandalism and cemetery desecration. Many more incidents have since been added to that tally.
Goldenberg and SCN are currently focused on helping Jewish institutions ramp up their security protocols – for example, by improving communications systems so if someone notices something suspicious, like a person taking photos of a building, senior staff at other local Jewish institutions can be notified immediately via text or phone alerts.
While Jewish groups have taken security seriously since 9/11, more funding is being earmarked for this cause than ever before, in some cases, sources report.
A higher proportion of his synagogue’s budget is spent on security than in the past, confirms Steve Rabinowitz, a vice president of Washington, D.C.’s Congregation Adas Israel.
“The shul spends a great deal of money,” he said, to cover uniformed and plainclothes security officers, security cameras and other precautions.
Such activities started a while ago, “even before we had a Trump grandkid in the preschool,” adds Rabinowitz, referring to one of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s children. “It’s easy to say ‘err on the side of safety,’ but how do you know how much is enough? It’s money that could be spent on Jewish education. Those are tough decisions to make.”
According to Brenda Moxley, director of community security for the Miami-area Jewish community, “It’s a changing paradigm: Since 9/11 people in the community and the field of security in general have shifted to being more proactive rather than reactive.”
Moxley’s area includes 120 different organizations from day schools to JCCs to synagogues. Before being hired by the local Federation to launch her security office, Moxley was assistant special agent in charge of criminal investigations for the FBI’s Miami division.
Other minority groups are now looking to the U.S. Jewish community as a paradigm of success when it comes to handling security threats.
“There's no doubt the Jewish community is the best organized,” says SCN’s Goldenberg, who has recently advised black Christian congregations as well as Muslim and Sikh and Catholic groups.
The wave of anti-religious activities in North America has not spared other faiths, as illustrated by the January murder of six at a Quebec mosque, and recent arson attacks at three U.S. mosques.
White supremacists “use the same tropes” against all of us, says Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which began consulting with Goldenberg seven or eight years ago, when he was vice chair of the Homeland Security Department's Faith-based Communications and Security Advisory Committee.
