Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jewish Groups Coordinating Security For Jews On Campuses

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Four national Jewish organizations involved in advocating for Jewish university students have launched a security coordination initiative with the national umbrella for Jewish security.

Michael Masters, the incoming director of the Secure Community Network, the security arm of national Jewish community organizations, told JTA this week that the Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, Chabad, and the AEPi fraternity were jointly cooperating on the initiative.

“There was a recognition — the initiative is just over roughly a year ago — that conditions on campuses and student organizations required a collective and collaborative approach to deal with Jewish security issues,” he said.

He said one of the triggers for the cooperative venture was a May 2016 protest of the screening of a pro-Israel movie at the University of California-Irvine. Protesters kept those attending the film from leaving the room.

The Hillel vice president of communications, Matthew Berger, confirmed the arrangement.

“Hillel International believes the safety of our students and professionals is of the utmost importance,” he said in an email. “Given that both Jewish institutions and college campuses have been targeted for violence in recent years, we recognize the need to provide our campuses with the expertise to better protect their facilities and programs. By partnering with SCN, we are able to offer Hillels a direct resource to assess their facilities and prepare for potential scenarios.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.