Schumer, Religious Leaders Seek Doubling of Security Grant

Jewish and other religious leaders on Wednesday called for the federal government to double its Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) to $360 million, at a press conference at the UJA-Federation in Manhattan alongside U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

“We did not imagine living through a nightmare in the United States of not one, not two, but three synagogues being the sites of domestic terrorist attacks, and that’s what we’ve now lived through,” said Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s Executive Director for Public Policy . “In my 25 years of working in advocacy for the synagogue community, I didn’t imagine that I would turn on my phone after Shabbat and the first call I would get would be from the Secretary of Homeland Security telling me about another synagogue terrorist incident.”

The press conference was held 11 days after a Muslim gunman took four hostages at Shabbos services a Reform Jewish temple in Colleyville, Texas. Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen, freed one hostage after six hours; the other three escaped five hours later. FBI officers then shot dead Akram, who had been demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, known as “Lady al-Qaeda,” who is serving an 86-year sentence in a federal prison in Fort Worth on charges including attempted murder.

The Jewish community has suffered several deadly attacks at houses of worship in recent years: In 2018, a man who had posted antisemitic and anti-immigrant statements online, killed eleven people and wounded six during Shabbos services at a Conservative Jewish temple on Pittsburgh; and on Pesach 2019, a man who had written a manifesto saying Jews were preparing a “meticulously planned genocide of the European race” killed one worshipper and injured three at a Chabad shul in Poway, California.

There have also been deadly shootings at churches in recent years, including a white supremacist killing nine black people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and the 2017 slaughter of of 25 people and wounding of 22 others by a man who had been prohibited by law from owning weapons due to a domestic violence conviction in a court-martial while he was an Air Force officer.

“A house of worship used to be a house of prayer, of reflection, not a place of fear,” Rabbi Yeruchim Silber of Agudath Israel said at the press conference. “It’s unfortunate that people go to a house of worship and … sit in fear of G-d forbid a terroist attack coming to the shul or church or mosque.”

There were also deadly attacks on Jews at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City and a Chanukah celebration in Monsey. In both cases, the accused assailants were believed to have been inspired by Black Hebrew Israelite ideology.

The NPSG, administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, provides grants of up to $150,000  to  houses of worship, private schools, and other nonprofits at risk of terror attacks.

“When a would-be terrorist comes and sees security, cameras … the whole neighborhood, the whole area, becomes safer,” Joel Rosenfeld of Bobover Institutions said at the press conference. “So it’s not only the institution itself — it’s the area that gets protected.”

NSGP funds, currently allocated at $180 million, may be used for security improvements to buildings and to hire security guards. Wednesday’s press conference came a day after Jewish and Christian groups sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to double the allocation to $360 million.

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Videos courtesy of Jacob Kornbluh

Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s Executive Director for Public Policy

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Josel Rosenfeld of Bobover Institutions

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Rabbi Yeruchim Silber of Agudath Israel

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Sen. Schumer introducing District Leader David Schwartz

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Letter from religious leaders sent to President Biden on Tuesday, requesting the increase in security funding. The letter was signed by religious groups including Agudath Israel, the Orthodox Union, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for religious Liberty, the National African American Clergy Network, National Association of Evangelicals and the Episcopal Church: