Jewish Federations Praise Proposed Boost In Security Funding
Image by Claudio Papapietro
(JTA) — Jewish federations lauded a proposed increase in security grant funding that helps protect Jewish institutions.
Congress reached an agreement Sunday night that would increase funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program by $5 million from the 2016 allocation, the federations said in a Monday statement. The House and the Senate are expected to vote on the bill later this week.
“We are grateful that Congress has acted upon our concerns and has agreed to direct $25 million in new funding to the NSGP program this year in bipartisan spending legislation that is expected to pass later this week,” William Daroff, director of the Washington office for The Jewish Federations of North America, said in the statement.
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.
Last month, Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the House called in a letter for increased funding to the program, from $20 million to $50 million a year.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
