An American Jewish umbrella organization is actively lobbying Congress for more security funding as antisemitic and Islamic attacks rise in the United States amid the intensifying conflict in Iran.

 

...The recent incident demonstrates the urgent necessity for the allocation of more security funding through federal and state grants, the Jewish Federations of North America says.

 

JFNA believes the right level of funding for security personnel, including those stationed at synagogues, should be $1 billion. The current amount, as determined by congressional appropriators, is $300 million.

 

For context, the Jewish community spends over $765 million a year on security to protect itself.

 

“There’s no ethnic or religious group that comes close to having to secure their institutions this way, to cover every event with security,” JFNA President and CEO Eric Fingerhut told the Washington Examiner. “We’re having to basically arm ourselves and secure every single event. That’s not America. That’s not the way it should be.”

 

Fingerhut says the FBI has told him that its agents investigated over 2,300 hate crimes against the Jewish community last year — 10 times more than the next largest religious or ethnic group. Jews account for only 2% of the U.S. population, yet they are the target of nearly 70% of all religion-based hate crimes.

 

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