By Janis Siegel and Joel Magalnick, other
Jews living in Washington State are finding that the degree of vigilance to go to a synagogue service or drop off children at a Jewish school has been bumped up a few notches.
Although security measures currently in place are not as obvious — or as necessary — as the brown boxes containing gas masks carried by Israelis since the onset of the Iraqi offensive by coalition forces, others signal visible changes.
“I think about security everyday,” said Barry Sohn, executive director of the Stroum Jewish Community Center. “If we do enhance security, our goal is to keep things business as usual and do it in a way that is not disruptive.”
Anyone approaching the SJCC building must be buzzed in or use an electronic identification card to gain entrance. The center employs armed security and the Mercer Island Police have provided training to center staff so that they are prepared for most emergency situations.
“That’s just reality and this is our way of life now,” Sohn said. “We have a very close relationship with the Mercer Island Police and we know that there are some measures we can still implement if we need to. Most of our members seem to be pretty unconcerned and part of it is that they feel pretty safe.”
The changes at the JCC reflect other recent precautions taken at institutions such as the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, where security cards, video cameras and new rules on allowing building entry are quickly becoming a reality. Chuck Broches, one of the Federation employees spearheading new security procedures, said that even in wartime agencies should prepare for any kind of crisis.
“We also need to think about two other kinds of emergency, which are more prevalent and more pronounced. One is the natural disaster or earthquake,” Broches said. “The second is a medical emergency in the facility.”
In addressing any of these situations, Broches pointed to Jewish Day School’s assistant head of school John C. Zito, who has put scenarios from all three types of emergency in one place.
“We have a pamphlet,” Zito said, “and in it is the response to every single thing —hopefully the appropriate response — from an intruder to an earthquake to a bomb threat.”
Every JDS teacher has received emergency preparedness training and keeps the book in easy reach. Zito said he has shared the book with institutions such as Chabad, Seattle Hebrew Academy, and even some of the Bellevue public schools.
In addition, Zito said he keeps in regular touch with the police, the FBI and the ADL, and has done so since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. JDS has made other, more visible changes as well to make its California-style open building less accessible to outsiders.
The three-pronged approach to safety that JDS and the Jewish Federation encourage has also been used across the state, at Temple Beth Shalom in Spokane.
“Our procedures and preparedness to respond to a threat from an intruder or a bomb threat are as integral and ingrained into our program as is our preparedness to respond to a fire or an earthquake,” say synagogue officials. With a more isolated Jewish community, Beth Shalom staff was hesitant to discuss any type of security precautions, but did say they have an ongoing program that is more proactive than reactive.
Security has been on the mind of Temple De Hirsch Sinai’s executive director Larry Broder for years, but “we never talk about…the details of security that we have in place,” he said.
“I grew up in the Bronx in a tough time, and you didn’t walk down the street with your hands in your pockets and your eyes down at the ground,” Broder said.
Broder noted that De Hirsch Sinai’s security presence was largely invisible until the summer of 1999, when a man named Buford Furrow opened fire on a Los Angeles JCC.
Broder said the measure of security walks a fine line between too little and too much. “There’s both a perception of security or safety, and the reality of it,” he said, “and we try to do our best to bring those two to the most reasonable level”
That seems to be the challenge for leaders of Jewish organizations in and around Seattle, who constantly reevaluate their security measures and assess potential safety risks while they try to keep a calm, stable environment for members and visitors.
“The challenge is finding that balance between taking measures that help people feel as safe as possible without crossing the line and increasing their anxiety,” said Elizabeth Fagin, director of the Temple B’nai Torah Religion School in Bellevue. “We’ve had many conversations about how to keep that balance in check.”
Fagin says the temple has taken new security measures, but she feels safe enough for now and says the temple is conducting business as usual.
“We have made no programming changes,” Fagin said. “It’s definitely our responsibility to continue to go on with our jobs, our education, our services and not go home in fear.”
Seattle Police, the FBI, and a recent memo from the ADL have all stated that no specific threat has been made so far, yet even without a known threat, the war on Iraq has still made people nervous.
“Part of this comes from the fact that Jewish institutions have been singled out in each of the security warnings and heightened security colorings the U.S. has set up,” said Brian Goldberg, Director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Pacific Northwest Region.
Goldberg also mentioned the Los Angeles JCC shooting as an example of how high standards of safety at one institution came at the expense of the lower level of security at other institutions. He said Furrow ended up at the JCC only after he attempted to shoot at three other Jewish institutions and failed.
Having been trained to assess security and regularly called upon to make recommendations for Jewish agencies, Goldberg said he hopes that situation doesn’t occur again. He noted that every Jewish institution in the area has taken security precautions, “some of which we can see and some of which we can’t see,” especially in comparison to other types of institutions.
Still, the police are on call.
“We have specifically asked our officers to pay attention to the buildings and institutions that are Jewish and Muslim,” said Chief of the Emergency Preparedness Bureau of the Seattle Police Department, Asst. Chief Brent Wingstrand. “There were concerns during the first Gulf War in 1991. When the World Trade towers were attacked we had a number of attacks on Islamic institutions. So now, one or both of these are possible.”
Wingstrand and his officers have a list of sensitive sites in the city. During times of increased risk, the officers will reshuffle their priorities to fit the situation.
All of these precautions do not come cheap, however. Between readiness assessments, the presence of full-time security personnel, and additional technology, a bit bite has been taken out of budgets that are already stretched thin.
Leon Reisberg, president of the board of trustees at Temple Beth El in Tacoma, said that all of their programs have taken a hit. “There’s not the same amount of money available for programming, and for upgrades of equipment in the office, curriculum for the kids,” he said. “It’s across the board.”
Temple Beth El has experienced one hate crime since the Sept. 11 attacks: bullets fired into the sanctuary in May 2002 were later attributed to John Allen Muhammed and John Lee Malvo, who were arrested in connection with the Washington, DC sniper shootings late last year.
Reisberg and Broder said both of their congregations have added security fees on top of their regular dues. At the Federation, Broches said that while no money for beneficiary allocations was used for recent security upgrades, internal expenditures that might have included out-of-town conferences have been cut.
At Jewish Day School, a large part of the school’s emergency preparedness budget came from last year’s fundraising auction gala, in which their funded auction item raised enough money to cover a full-time security guard in addition to other security upgrades.
Josh Gortler, CEO and executive director of the Caroline Kline Galland Nursing Home, said, “We have not done anything different than we’ve done before,” but noted that any outside group who uses the Summit on First Hill facility for a program must hire a uniformed guard at its own expense.
All of Kline Galland’s facilities exercise high levels of security.
The past few years have been a struggle for many Jewish organizations in general, and the cost of security and emergency precautions has not made things easier. Judging from government predictions of a prolonged war in Iraq and the observations of the decision makers who ensure the safety of their institution’s members, the many security precautions that have been put in place will likely be permanent.