Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 6, 2022

Three years after a deadly anti-Semitic attack at a Poway synagogue, local houses of worship have become experts in something that never used to be part of their vocabulary: target hardening.

Those two words appear over and over in grant applications San Diego County religious organizations filed with the state recently to receive money for safeguarding their sanctuaries.

Two-dozen of them were awarded a combined $4.5 million from the California Office of Emergency Services. They plan to use the funds for such things as fences, bulletproof window coverings, lighting, parking lot bollards, camera systems and armed guards.

Its sad that we have to be a citadel, a fortified place, said Father George Awad, a priest at Holy Cross Coptic Orthodox Church in Escondido, one of the grant recipients. But thats the world we live in. And its better to be safe than not.

The local security grants were among 290 awarded statewide in late January. They will funnel $47.5 million into protective measures for non-profit organizations deemed at high risk of violent attacks and other hate crimes because of their beliefs or missions.

More than half of the San Diego County recipients 14 are Jewish organizations, a reflection of rising anti-Semitism here and across the country. Another half-dozen are affiliated with other faiths: Christian, Islam, Sikh.

Also included are the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and St. Vincent de Paul Villages, which got grants not because of their beliefs, but because of the work they do. The Safari Park is a well-known tourist destination, making it a potential terrorist target, and St. Vincent de Paul assists homeless people, some of them victims of violence and some of them perpetrators.

Grant money awarded to the 26 local groups ranged from $72,383 to $200,000, the maximum allowed. Seventeen of them received the highest amount, or close to it.

Two Sheriffs deputies stand guard as people enter Chabad of Poway for a Shabbat service in May 2019, shortly after a gunman killed one woman and injured three other people.

(Hayne Palmour IV/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Almost all of the applications obtained in heavily redacted form by the Union-Tribune through a Public Records Act request cited the April 27, 2019 shooting at the Chabad of Poway. A gunman fueled by a hatred of Jews killed one woman and injured three other people. After pleading guilty last year in both state and federal courts, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Any attack to a place of worship is concerning, but when it happens this close to home, it makes you realize that these things really could happen anywhere, said Manjit Singh Gill, a board member at the Poway-based Sikh Foundation, another grant recipient. Unfortunately, in this day and age, its something we all have to be concerned with.

The applications offer a window into the kinds of threats local religious organizations experience regularly.

One temple found bullet holes in a window at its pre-school a few months after the Poway shooting. That incident created significant grief and anxiety among the staff and congregants and prompted families to remove 11 children from the school.

At a church in North County, someone drove a car into the closed double-doors at the front of the sanctuary during a service.

Another temple received a phone message: I will be the next synagogue shooter. I will be the best. A Jewish congregant had corrosive liquid poured on her car. Trash bins were set on fire.

Hate-filled graffiti was written on the walls of buildings. Swastikas adorned unsigned letters. People drove by while services were letting out and shouted slurs.

Telephone operators at Muslim centers heard angry callers tell them they are ruining the world and worshipping Satan. Strangers stood outside a temple or church with a camera, videotaping the premises and the people who went in and out.

Some of the threats have led to arrests and convictions and forced the affected organizations to keep tabs on the whereabouts of newly paroled instigators.

You have to look at what kinds of things are going on, not just on your property but elsewhere, said Julie Haines, a grant writer for Christ the King Lutheran Church in Fallbrook. You have to know what could eventually make it to your place.

Heidi Gantwerk, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, said the frequency of threats forces local congregations to spend money on security that would otherwise go to helping their members and the wider community.

Do they improve the playground, or do they provide armed security so people will send kids to their school? she said. More and more, they are choosing the latter.

Thats why the state grants are attractive, according to Gill, from the Sikh Foundation. Most non-profits struggle to make ends meet on their regular expenses, so its difficult for them to do these security enhancements, he said.

He described the grants as a win-win situation for the community jobs for fencing companies, camera suppliers and others, and we get the opportunity to provide a place thats safe for people to come and worship in peace.

As part of the grant application, each non-profit had to have a vulnerability assessment of its property done by police, military or other authorized auditors.

Are there fences, and are the fences maintained? Are the doorways illuminated? Are there security checkpoints for visitors? Alarms? Surveillance cameras? The checklist goes on for 10 pages.

Some of the organizations are veterans at this. Temple Emanu-El in Del Cerro got its first security grant 15 years ago, said Cathi Marx, co-president.

The temple has become sophisticated in things like situational awareness and natural surveillance and territorial reinforcement. But theres always room for improvement, Marx said. Temple Emanu-El received $200,000 from the state this go-round.

(Like most people interviewed for this story, she declined to discuss specific modifications. The applications obtained by the Union-Tribune also had that information redacted for security reasons.)

The goal, Marx said, is to find a balance that allows a place to be both welcoming and safe. The Jewish community has come a long way from saying Lets not have a guard to saying OK, lets have guards, but not armed guards to today when more and more synagogues have armed guards, she said.

If its done right, once a worshipper gets past the security checks, the only thing they have to think about is their relationship to God, she said.

But getting to that point can be hard emotionally, especially for organizations just starting down the path of target hardening. Haines, at Christ Lutheran, remembered the pained expressions of congregants when a fence went up around the church.

They were really sad, she said. They wanted to know, Why are we doing this? It feels like a prison. Were supposed to be open.

Her church was awarded $196,000 this time.

The money hasnt been distributed yet. The non-profits have to submit detailed plans and gather competitive bids for construction projects, security guards and the like. Theyll also be audited to make sure the money they receive gets spent for its intended purpose, according to the state.

Thats been an issue here. About a year after the Poway shooting, the synagogues founding rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, pleaded guilty to fraud charges that included misappropriating state and federal grants that were supposed to be for bolstering security.

He was sentenced earlier this year to 14 months in prison. Hannah Kaye, whose mother, Lori Gilbert-Kaye, was killed in the shooting, said afterward that her family holds Goldstein partly responsible because he pocketed grant money meant to safeguard the Chabad.

The synagogue was not among the San Diego County organizations awarded grant money this time.

See the original post here:

Fences and bulletproof windows: How security grants are being used to harden houses of worship - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Category: Synagogue
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