{"id":53845,"date":"2020-03-01T18:07:30","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T00:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=53845"},"modified":"2020-03-01T18:07:30","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T00:07:30","slug":"security-is-top-priority-for-federations-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/security-is-top-priority-for-federations-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Security is top priority for Federation&#8217;s mission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By ALAN SMASON<\/p>\n<p>Following the October, 2018 terrorist attack at Pittsburgh&#8217;s Tree of Life\/ L&#8217;Or Simcha Synagogue and last year&#8217;s attack at the Chabad of Poway (California)&nbsp; Center, the primary concern for Jewish synagogues and other institutions has been that of security.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_53848\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53848\" class=\"wp-image-53848 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-300x228.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"228\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-300x228.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-768x584.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-1024x779.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/228;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53848\" class=\"wp-image-53848 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-300x228.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"228\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-300x228.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-768x584.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Aaron_Ahlquist-1024x779.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-53848\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aaron Ahlquist co-chair of Federation&#8217;s task force on security. (Photo by Alan Smason)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As the Yom Kippur anti-Semitic attack in Halle, Germany showed, a tightly barred gate can prove to be a rudimentary, but effective deterrent to terrorism. But the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans knows that closed gates are not the only measures needed to ward off similar attacks in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The recent Chanukah attack at a rabbi&#8217;s home in Monsey, New York added more concerns as to how to protect those who clearly identify as Jews and how this might affect the the more visibly Jewish members of the Greater New Orleans Jewish community.<\/p>\n<p>With an eye on enhanced security several months before the tragedy in Pittsburgh, Federation CEO and president Arnie Fielkow created a task force to look into beefing up security throughout the institutions that are at the heart of the Greater New Orleans Jewish community. These include synagogues, Jewish Community Centers and highly-visible Jewish organizations that terrorists might view as easy targets.<\/p>\n<p>South Central Region Anti-Defamation League (ADL) executive director Aaron Ahlquist was the initial chairman of the effort, but as a rise in anti-Semitism occurred, Ahlquist saw the need to elevate one of his executive board members to co-chair status with him. Jewish Family Service (JFS) executive director Roselle Ungar, a consituent member of Federation, became co-chair of the task force at that point.<\/p>\n<p>In a self-deprecating manner, Ungar claimed that Ahlquist could have continued to chair the committee by himself, which he disputed in a joint phone interview with . &#8220;I think it&#8217;s good to have a partner,&#8221; she mused in a joint phone interview with Ahlquist and the CCJN.&nbsp; &#8220;I also think it&#8217;s good to have somebody else who is involved with the Jewish community who might bring a slightly different perspective on what&#8217;s happening on the ground, between being an executive director of a social service agency, but also involved with (my) synagogue and looking at security both ways.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_53852\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53852\" class=\"wp-image-53852 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/225;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53852\" class=\"wp-image-53852 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Roselle_Ungar2016-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-53852\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">JFS executive director Roselle Ungar. (Photo by Alan Smason)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>While traditional anti-Semitism has shown itself from the areas associated with right wing politics, Ahlquist says it is important to note that new threats of anti-Semitism are coming more and more frequently from the left, more liberal groups. &#8220;It&#8217;s critical that we take a holistic approach to responding to anti-Semitism without politicizing it,&#8221; he pointed out. &#8220;We need to be responding to all anti-Semtism, regardless of which side of the political spectrum it manifests on.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>JFS is a constituent agency of Federation. As the ADL is considered a beneficiary agency, it does not receive its funding directly from Federation like JFS. However, both executive directors noted that this is such an important community issue that it rises above it being a strictly Federation concern.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve had concerns in this community forever,&#8221; Ungar added. &#8220;Even when we built the Federation building, we were very conscious of security in the early 2000s.&#8221; Post 9\/11 and with the noted rise of anti-Semtism, there is even more cause to be concerned, she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is a community issue, both Jewish and non-Jewish,&#8221; Ungar emphasized.<\/p>\n<p>Following the attack in Pittsburgh, an anonymous gift was given to all area synagogues, the Federation and other Jewish agencies to harden the security needs for the past year. That gift resulted in a larger police presence and in policies being put into effect \u2013 some of which will not be evident \u2013 that will make Jewish institutions significantly safer, the two added.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_53853\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53853\" class=\"wp-image-53853 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/225;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-53853\" class=\"wp-image-53853 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Fielkow_Arnie2020-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-53853\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans CEO and president Arnie Fielkow. (Photo by Alan Smason)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;One of the things that&#8217;s really important is that the Jewish community is clearly under increasing pressure (from) rising anti-Semitism, but when we look at the global context, the faith community is under attack as well. There&#8217;s increasing vulnerability for the entirety of the faith community,&#8221; Ahlquist said. He noted attacks at soft targets in Minneapolis at a mosque, at another mosque in Christ Church, New Zealand, in Texas as well as in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>Ahlquist said he believes this creates an opportunity for real solidarity to show support for one another and to build additional resources between disparate faith groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The public outrage and outcry after the &#8216;Unite the Right Rally&#8217; in 2017 was deafening. Everybody condemned it and called it out, but the reality is they still got new members,&#8221; Ahlquist said. The fear he says he has is in the normalization of such anti-Semitic tropes, especially that which is now being seen more frequently in attacks from the left that are anti-Israel in nature.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Both sides are creating a clouding of perception of Jews and Israel,&#8221; he stated.<\/p>\n<p>The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), the Jewish Community Centers of America (JCCA), the two umbrella organizations representing local Federations and JCCs nationwide have parterned with Secure Communities Network as well as the ADL, Ahlquist stated. &#8220;SCN is, I think, a preferred security vendor with JFNA. SCN and the ADL have also partnered,&#8221; Ahlquist explained.<\/p>\n<p>Working with their task force, SCN has come into the area and identified resources as well as having facilitated training, Ungar said. &#8220;We&#8217;re not recommending what they should do,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;We&#8217;re helping identify needs in the Jewish community, looking for trends (and) helping to identify and provide resources for people, whether it&#8217;s for training or hardening the physical plants,&#8221; Ungar explained.<\/p>\n<p>Both agreed their mission is to provide what the synagogues and other institutions require to identify as important to them through risk assessments and other measures.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everybody has to decide what&#8217;s best for them and we are trying to help guide the synagogues and the member institutions in the right direction,&#8221; Ungar said.<\/p>\n<p>Future sessions will include ways to harden cyber security, made evident through recent attacks at the State of Louisiana&#8217;s Department of Motor Vehicles and at the City of New Orleans&#8217; network, which still has mail servers and dozens of computers offline, Ahlquist added.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Security%20is%20top%20priority%20for%20Federation%27s%20mission\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[553,8790,8795,8788,10531,140],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53845"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53854,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53845\/revisions\/53854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}