New York Jewish Week via JTA — When an attacker drove into Temple Israel in suburban Detroit last week, the synagogue’s security guards were ready to engage him. Soon after, the attacker was dead — with no serious injuries to anyone else.

But that was at the biggest congregation in the United States, with a large staff of full-time security officers — something few synagogues can muster.

Now, smaller congregations are scrambling to fortify themselves during what an official for the Secure Community Network, a national Jewish-run nonprofit, called “the most elevated and complex threat environment” in recent history.

In New York City, some are adding security guards through a new program that will cover additional labor costs, at least for a short time — while bemoaning a lack of federal funding due to a Department of Homeland Security shutdown.

Funding for the “Short-Term Security Guard Reimbursement Program” is coming from the Community Security Initiative, the UJA-Federation of New York and “key donors,” according to CSI’s CEO Mitchell Silber. It subsidizes New York-area Jewish institutions that only have one or no security guards and wish to add one or two for a four-week period.

The program is responding to a moment of acute alarm in the Jewish community: In addition to the Temple Israel attack, there were violent attacks at a Manchester synagogue last October, the Bondi Beach shooting over Hanukkah, and violent incidents in San Jose, California and Toronto.

Jewish institutions were already on alert after the Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel; Silber said that after the attacks, approximately 150 locations sought assistance from his group, a New York-based program founded in 2019. CSI said it issued its latest reimbursement program in response to “recent incidents and threats emanating from the war in Iran.”

This time around, there is a new wrinkle in the messaging: For the first time, the group recommends hiring armed security, in addition to securing entry points, strict entrance procedures and staff........

© The Times of Israel