Amid Rising Antisemitic Attacks, Jewish Federations Are Upping Their Security Funding

It’s been almost a month since a federal jury handed down a death sentence to Robert Bowers, the gunman who shot and killed 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.

The massacre, which was the deadliest killing of Jews in United States history, prompted Jewish federations across North America to revisit their security plans and increase funding for security updates and enhancements.

“Federations have always been involved in the security of their communities,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the umbrella organization that represents 146 Jewish federations and 300 smaller Jewish community groups across the continent. Prior to assuming his role at JFNA, Fingerhut served as president and CEO of Hillel International.

Local Jewish federations like the ones JFNA represents have a long history as civic sector bastions for Jewish communities, engaging in fundraising, grantmaking and a variety of other service activities.

“Whether it was hiring security guards or making sure that [the organizations] were in relationship with the local police, we've always been in this space,” Fingerhut said. “But certainly, the current level of involvement had two key turning points. One was after 9/11 when [based on their antisemitic rhetoric], it became clear to all of us that the people who attacked the twin towers and the Pentagon would surely turn themselves on the Jewish community. The second was the Tree of Life when we realized that [an antisemitic attack] could happen anywhere, anytime. This wasn’t just going to happen at the twin towers or the Pentagon. It could be any synagogue.”

Target hardening

In the aftermath of 9/11, JFNA created the Secure Community Network, which calls itself “the official safety and security organization of the Jewish community in North America.” JFNA also collaborated with federal officials to create FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which made grants available for both Jewish and non-Jewish nonprofit organizations. The grants are intended to be used for “target hardening” — security cameras, doors, gates and stanchions outside of buildings.

When it launched in 2004, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program provided grants totaling about $10 million a year. Fourteen years later, at the time of the Tree of Life shootings, it was giving away approximately $30 million annually. But after the shootings, grant funding skyrocketed to $305 million a year, an amount that Fingerhut and other Jewish communal leaders believe is still less than is needed to secure North America’s Jewish communities. JFNA continues to advocate for an increase in public grant funding — most recently, the organization lobbied for $360 million a year – but Fingerhut contends that private philanthropy must also play a role in securing Jewish communities.

“I believe very strongly that government ultimately has a responsibility to make sure that every American is safe in [their] places of worship and in [their] places of communal gathering,” Fingerhut said. “And government can provide resources at the level that private philanthropy never can. At the same time, we have a responsibility as a community to make sure that we are doing everything we can and also building those bridges to government. It’s a classic public-private partnership.”

In 2021, JFNA established LiveSecure, a fundraising campaign to address the ongoing and increasing security needs of its federations. In doing so, JFNA pledged that “every Jewish community would have a state-of-the-art comprehensive security program serving every Jewish institution through its local federation,” Fingerhut said.

The largest security initiative in the history of the North American Jewish community, LiveSecure aims to raise $130 million in its first three years. The goal includes $62 million that JFNA raised in the first phase of the LiveSecure campaign, as well as 2:1 matches from local federations for their security programs. So far, LiveSecure has enabled 103 Jewish federations around the U.S. and Canada to implement professionally led community security programs that meet Secure Community Network standards. This signifies a five-fold increase since the program began — LiveSecure grants have funded 58 new or improved security plans. These grants enable communities to hire community security directors or regional security advisors, create comprehensive security plans, help federations apply for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, provide ongoing support and training for local security initiatives and support JFNA’s advocacy on behalf of local Jewish communities.

Fingerhut believes that local federations will continue to need help from JFNA, but ultimately, LiveSecure’s goal is for federations to fund their own security programs.

“The strategy was to raise a national fund that would not pay for everything that [local federations need], but that would help inspire and motivate and facilitate the building of these local programs.”

“We are being proactive”

Local federations such as the Boston-based Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) already have robust security programs in place. In 2006, CJP created the Community Security Initiative to provide free security services to over 250 Jewish organizations in the Greater Boston area. Services include security consultations, assessments and helping local agencies prioritize their security investments.

Since 2016, Jeremy Yamin, a former special agent for the U.S. State Department and vice chair of a U.S. State Department faith-based security committee, has been at the helm of the Community Security Initiative as CJP’s vice president of security and operations. While an increase in antisemitism and antisemitic incidents prompted CJP to focus more heavily on security matters, Yamin stressed that the Community Security Initiative wasn’t created in reaction to any one particular incident.

“We are being proactive. We are not waiting for the latest incident to all of a sudden say, ‘Oh my God, we need to do something about security,’” he said. Yamin believes CJP’s capacity to fund and invest in local security services is unusual in comparison to other federations.

“Overall, we’ve provided $12 million to 144 Jewish institutions since 2016. We’ve been able to provide about $2 million to the Jewish community since 2019 thanks to the support of our donors. We've also helped the Jewish community access $3.5 million in Commonwealth and federal nonprofit security grants, which 51 organizations were able to obtain in the past year.”

In recent years, CJP has been able to fund the purchase of 60 automatic external defibrillators and has trained 700 people in emergency medical care for schools and synagogues.

Walking a fine line

While the Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore doesn’t have a separate security organization like CJP does, the federation also provides security services for the Jewish groups that are part of its system.

According to Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, the Associated Jewish Federation’s political and community relations arm, “Baltimore Jewish Council and the Associated’s system provides assistance for agencies applying for [Nonprofit Security Grant Program] federal grants, a process including conducting the security assessments that many synagogues, schools and others use to formulate their requests. We also answer questions as they fill out their applications.”

Libit said that the Baltimore Jewish Council has also partnered with former and current Maryland governors (Larry Hogan and Wes Moore, respectively) and the Maryland General Assembly “to create two state-level security grant programs — one for faith institutions at risk of hate crimes, and another for schools and daycare centers at risk of hate crimes. We also provide help to institutions in applying for those two state sources of funding.”

In addition, Libit said, JFNA’s Secure Community Network offers online security trainings and information sessions for Baltimore’s Jewish community. For example, a series of webinars on security for the upcoming High Holidays is currently underway. Last spring, the Baltimore Jewish Council and the Associated Jewish Federation also hosted one of the Secure Community Network’s experts for two community trainings on active shooter situations in the Baltimore area.

“We also regularly communicate and coordinate with [the Secure Community Network] whenever there is talk of a threat — either something nationally, or if their intelligence folks pick up a threat related to our area,” Libit said.

Thinking about security needs in Jewish communities, leaders must walk a fine line between the dual priorities of being warm and welcoming and making sure that community members feel safe in Jewish spaces.

As CJP’s Vice President of Development Amy Mitman put it, “If you don't feel safe and secure in a synagogue or a camp or a day school or an educational institution, you're not going to go. And that has a ripple effect on people's pride and connection and joy in their Jewish identity and their Jewish life. And so this is critical for CJP in terms of also being able to say that we are investing in a stronger, brighter future for the Jewish community as well. Coupling those two things has always been part of how we want to represent the work that we do in the community.”

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