Jewish group gets security training
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Print | From left are Paul Goldenberg, national director, National Secure Community Network; Charles McKenna, director of the N.J. Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness; Jacob Toporek, executive director of the N.J. State Association of Jewish Federations; Ruth Cole, its president; Mark Levenson, its president-elect; and Leonard Cole, director of the program on terror medicine and security of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. NJSAJF |
The Secure Community Network, the non-profit homeland security initiative of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, hosted an executive security conference June 14 for senior Jewish leaders in this state.
Paul Goldenberg, national director of SCN, who opened the conference at the East Brunswick Jewish Center, said that the “event highlights the strong partnership between the governor’s office, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, and the leadership of our Jewish communities in New Jersey.” He added, “The importance of public-private partnerships, particularly as it relates to homeland security efforts cannot be overstated.”
Co-sponsors were the New Jersey State Association of Jewish Federations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Orthodox Union, and Agudath Israel.
Nearly 100 community delegates, law enforcement officers, and security experts attended.
The NJSAJF “is a prime sponsor and coordinating agent for this statewide security training program because it is important to our community safety,” said its president, Ruth Cole of Ridgewood,
“The Jewish community remains highly vulnerable to terrorist threats and, therefore, it is vital that we remain vigilant, prepared, and well-trained and that our community security communications network is well integrated from the initial receipt of alerts to rapid response deployment,” Cole said.
Morning briefings by officials from the U.S Department of Homeland Security and the Anti-Defamation League were followed by training to strengthen preparedness and assessment strategies for Jewish communal institutions, including federations, day schools, synagogues, JCCs, and other organizations.
Josh Pruzansky, N.J. regional director of public policy for the Institute for Public Affairs of the Orthodox Union, said that “synagogues and day schools have become the front line against terror and the staff of these institutions are our last line of defense…. [T]o provide practical training and guidance to them in how to react in an emergency is, unfortunately, critical. We are grateful to New Jersey’s leadership for recognizing this need and partnering with the Jewish community to meet it, especially Governor Christie, the lieutenant governor, and Director [Charles] McKenna” of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.
McKenna, the keynote speaker, said, “We will all be safer if people say something when they see something.” He added that his agency “has been at the forefront in reporting suspicious activity through the Counter Terrorism Watch, its 24 hour-tip line.”
The convenors advise that suspicious activity should be reported by phone to 1-866-4-SAFE-NJ (1-866-472-3365), fax (609) 530-3650 or by e-mail to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Flag CommentSorry, I must have missed something. The headline of the article claims that participants received “security training” but the article mentions nothing other than being advised to report suspicious activity and to “say something when they see something.” That was it? That was the extent of a full day of “training”. Seems rather obvious, no?
How about the harder question involving what is probably the most likely scenario? What do the congregants in a synagogue or the staff in a day school or JCC do when armed men walk into the facility and start shooting —otherwise known as the active shooter scenario? It’s happened many times in Israel, it happened in Mumbai, it happend at the Holocaust Museum, it happened at a JCC in California, etc. So what should we do? We know that the police can’t be at every institution all the time, and most insitutions simply can’t afford an armed guard. Call the police? Ok, it will take, in the best case, 4 or 5 minutes for police to arrive, and who knows how long to enter the building (do they wait for backup or a swat team)? What should everyone do in the meantime? Become victims, I guess.
I know, I know, we don’t like to think about this because there is no politically correct, feel good easy answer, like “say something when you see something.” However, the simple, obvious answer is to enable people to defend themselves in the first instance. And the only, effective way to do this, is with 1) training and 2) a firearm. Somehow this is ok—in Israel. But suggest it here and the labels “rage filled”, “paranoid”. “extremist”, “vigilante” etc are immediately applied by organizations like the ADL and publications like the Jewish Week. Until attitudes change and reason prevails, “security conferences” like this will remain nothing more than farcical, feel good gatherings of our ineffectual Jewish “leadership”
