There is a violent anti-Semitism incident You will reach all the time All over the country, Chicago-based nonprofits teach Jews how to protect themselves and, in some cases, how to fight back.
Since its founding in 2004, the Secure Community Network (SCN) has already trained tens of thousands of people in the US and Canada Jewish communities on simple emergency measurements, such as automatic lock doors, to ensure maximum protection, on how to survive a terrorist situation and how to equip synagogues and other public spaces.
SCN will also help community groups write grants to the Department of Homeland Security and seek funding for new security measures.
The goal is to “train and empower the community” in the wake of the 2018 massacre at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which killed 11 people, according to Michael Masters, national director and CEO of SCN. More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed, similar to the attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel.
Earlier this month, the group discovered an online terrorist toolkit that was circulating among anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University.
According to a website that singles out Israel's largest weapons producer, Elbit Systems, a 14-page manual from a group called Palestinian Action, a UK-based group that uses “destructive tactics” against “corporate enablers of Israeli military industrial complexes.”
“For over three or five hundred years, we've learned that anti-Semitism will never go away,” Masters, 46 said.
Masters is a former Marine who received his law degree from Harvard University, where he began working on the group's strategic planning in 2015.
He said he took over the SCN two years later, and under his leadership, the group has grown exponentially from a five-person business, employing more than 100 employees nationwide, with more than $25 million paid through donations from the Jewish Union on a budget of more than $25 million.
Some SCN investigators and trainers include former FBI analysts and other retired law enforcement agencies with the ability to monitor threats and alert community leaders and synagogues 24 hours a day.
When a crazy intruder plunged into the synagogue during Sabbath service and pulled out a gun in Texas three years ago, a few congregations knew how to save themselves.
After more than 10 hours of standoffs, gunman, British national Malik Faisal Akram ordered the congregation to their lap. However, the rabbi told him to run to the hostage and threw a chair in the direction of the temptation, which ended the standoff. Akram was then killed by the police.
Many of the congregations of Beth Israeli Congregation in Coryville were trained by the SCN and used the tactics they learned. For example, they moved far away from the gunman and gradually moved towards the exit during their standoff.
“Training kept us safe,” said engineer Jeffrey Cohen, one of the four hostages at the Coryville Synagogue. “The purpose of the training was to teach people to be aware, to run, hide and to fight in emergencies.
Collie, 62, said she ran through the door of the synagogue and raw under the hedge.
“We knew what to do and saved ourselves,” Cohen told the Post, adding that he now spoke at synagogues and other community groups, urging his leaders to adopt the same training he received.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, the group recorded more than 5,400 threats to the Jewish group. This recorded more than double the amount in 2022, a SCN spokesman said.
“I'm proud every day when people come to our command center in Chicago and see what we're doing and they say, 'It made me feel so good to know this is here.'
“We've lived over our shoulders in the world for too long. It's time for the bad guys to look over them.”
