How to Vaccinate Against Antisemitism 

By Zalman Myer-Smith

As the Jewish community begins the slow resumption to post COVID19 life, we again face a resurgence of antisemitic attacks.

Amazingly, even during the pandemic, there were 2024 reports of antisemitism recorded according to the ADL. In the last couple of years, between the shootings at Poway, Pittsburgh & the New Jersey City grocery store as well as the machete attack in Monsey, the American Jewish community has faced an onslaught of antisemitic attacks. Nationally, over 60% of FBI reported hate crimes were focused on the Jewish community.

Today we receive countless daily reports of verbal antisemitism, reports of graffiti or offensive leaflets, damage to vehicles or property and sadly assaults on community members. When is it going to be enough? What can we do as community leaders and members?

There is definitely huge progress with Jewish sites upgrading security and training staff and volunteers. We work very hard to make sure community members and sites take the security and safety of their locations seriously and do so before, not during or after an incident. The reality is that Jewish sites are still seen as soft targets. 

The responsibility of ensuring a secure community rests solely on the community. Everyone has a role to play. Uniformity in responses will speed up your ability to avert or mitigate a tragedy. And there are a myriad of low to no cost systems and items you can put in place that will make the job of an attacker that much harder and for them to decide your location is too challenging to attack. 

The best weapon in security is common sense. Common sense actively applies to situational awareness, but also more critically to preparation, planning and drilling effective responses to security or medical emergencies. It makes far more sense to know how to have a coordinated response to a security or medical emergency beforehand.

We saw in Halle, Germany on Yom Kippur in 2019 the simple act of keeping a door closed and locked frustrated the efforts of a Neo Nazi gunman from causing a devastating massacre.

We have seen the power of trained security volunteers onsite working alongside our local law enforcement partners in deterring and detecting suspicious behavior or persons. Installing a perimeter, adding access control, security cameras and secure doors and windows are all a great start. Setting up community members to know how to respond to such an emergency is critical. Just as we want as many people to be trained in first aid to save a life, so too should each and every community member of all ages participate in protecting Jewish life proactively.

For obvious security reasons, I am not going to detail too much in this article, however I can mention that solid security starts from the outside of a shul, school or community center and the more layers or barriers that a potential attacker has to overcome to gain entry or access to people, the less likely the chance of success of their mission.

At the time of writing, the conflict in Israel also impacts us from a security perspective in the USA, particularly for visibly Jewish sites. Security infrastructure can be created in a relatively short period of time if it’s based on proven protocols and best practices.

Setting up a professional long term security team is an almost no cost activity that can be completed in a few days.

Here are 5 steps in building that team: 

1. Create a security team – 3 people minimum
2. Set up a security volunteer roster with roles & Responsibilities 
3. Establish Policies & Protocols to create a security plan
4. Set up Internal & External Communications
5. Law enforcement – Build & Maintain relationships
6. Initial and Ongoing Training for regular staff and your security team.

There is no reason to delay and recent events are a stark reminder to address security and safety deficiencies. It’s a non negotiable part of your operating procedures and budget and responsibility we have to each other.