Lawmakers Urge Increased Security Funding For Jewish Institutions
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Josefin Dolsten April 4, 2017
(JTA) — A bipartisan letter by House members is calling for increased funding for a program that funds security for Jewish sites.
The letter, spearheaded by Reps. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., and Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., and signed by 112 lawmakers, calls for more than doubling funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, to $50 million a year from $20 million. It cites intelligence assessments finding the threat of “homegrown violent extremists, who draw inspiration from ISIL or other Sunni extremist organizations,” as well as bomb threats and anti-Semitic acts committed against Jewish community centers, schools, museums and synagogues.
A budget plan by President Donald Trump proposed rolling the funds for the program into broader federal emergency preparedness funds. The vast majority of funds have helped upgrade security at Jewish institutions.
The Orthodox Union lauded the letter.
Nearly 150 JCCs and other Jewish institutions received bomb threats and three Jewish cemeteries were vandalized this year. Nearly two weeks ago, an Israeli-American teen was arrested on suspicion of calling in more than 100 bomb threats.
Last month, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., slammed Trump’s budget proposal.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
