In high-level meetings with Jewish Federations on Tuesday and Wednesday, Congressional leadership and representatives from Michigan expressed support for increasing security funding to help stave off attacks such as the one targeting West Bloomfield's Temple Israel last Thursday. 

Gary Torgow, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Jewish Federations of North America and a Detroit native, said of the group’s meetings with Congressional leaders: "We have seen almost unanimity amongst our political leaders. They understand it. They get it. They want to do anything they possibly can to help us in these times. They understand that antisemitism is rising, and they want to do everything they can to support us."

Leaders from the umbrella body and The Jewish Federation of Detroit, along with Temple Israel Rabbi Jen Lader, met with Congressional leadership, members of the Michigan House and Senate delegation, and other Congressional decision makers.  

Meetings included: Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (LA-01), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-8), Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Senator Jim Lankford (R-OK), and the Michigan House delegation led by Representative Haley Stevens (MI-11).

 

Last Thursday, Temple Israel was attacked by an antisemitic terrorist, who targeted one of the largest synagogues in the United States. Over 150 people were in the building, including more than 120 children at one of the state's largest preschools. The swift action of armed security guards stopped the attacker before he could achieve his aim of murdering Jewish children and adults.  

According to the FBI, Jews are the subject of more than 50% of all hate crimes despite making up only 2% of the population, and the number of hate crimes the FBI pursues against the Jewish community is more than ten times greater than the next most frequently targeted group.  

The Jewish community is now spending over $765M per year on its own security; no other religious or ethnicity group in the United States must build its own security forces in order to gather in its own religious and communal spaces. 

 
Temple Israel's Rabbi Jen Lader explained that the community is incredibly grateful for the "heroic acts of our security team, the training that our children received to be able to make sure this tragedy did not become a catastrophe... I want people to understand exactly what happened to our community. I want people to understand that despite incredible luck and incredible preparation, the catastrophic damage that was done to our school, to our building, to our community, to our psyches, and be able to learn from this moment, and make us stronger and better in the future."

 
Eric Fingerhut, President and CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, outlined what rising antisemitism means for the Jewish community, saying: "We are in the middle of the most serious, violent antisemitic threat environment against the Jewish community in the history of the United States. The Jewish community is spending over $765 million a year to protect itself. It's the largest item in every synagogue, every school, every camp, every Jewish community center budget. It is the government's responsibility to protect its citizens in their places of worship, in their places of communal gathering, and the government of the United States must step up to this responsibility now, before we have another tragedy of a kind that we almost had in Detroit last week."

 
To address rapidly rising threats to the Jewish community, Jewish Federation of North America are asking Congress to act on their six-point security plan. Fundamental to this plan is urging Congress to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) to $1 billion. Current funding levels are insufficient, covering fewer than half of all applicants each year.  

Jewish Federations of North America represent 141 local Federations across the country. Federations were first on the ground in Michigan and already key backers of the comprehensive security system at Temple Israel. If not for millions invested in Jewish security, including a regional and on-staff security system, last week’s incident could have become one of the largest terrorist attacks in the history of the country.