SECURITY FIRST! North Jersey Religious Institutions Get $4.8M Federal Boost

Amid increased allegations of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other bias incidents, U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer announced $4.8 million in federal grants on Friday to improve security at religious institutions in his North Jersey district.

The 34 award recipients, including synagogues, mosques, churches, religious institutions, and community centers, will invest in physical security, training, and technology, according to a Democrat at a news conference.

“We must ensure everyone’s safety on college campuses, neighborhoods, schools, churches, mosques, and synagogues.” That is what nonprofit security grants are all about,” Gottheimer told students at Teaneck’s Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School. According to Gottheimer, New Jersey’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes northern Bergen, Passaic, and Morris counties, has received the most money from the federal program in recent years, totaling $10.3 million.

Reports of bias incidents and hate crimes have been increasing in the United States and New Jersey for years, but tensions have risen after Hamas’ terror attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s ensuing military operations in Gaza. In 2022, recorded bias incidents established a record in New Jersey, and preliminary statistics indicated that the record would be broken again last year, according to the state Attorney General’s Office in March.

Over the previous two weeks, college campuses have become a flashpoint, with some Jewish students claiming to feel threatened amid demonstrations over the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Ma’ayanot Yeshiva was one of 29 grantees awarded the maximum sum of $150,000. Among the other recipients were the Moriah School in Englewood, a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school with 800 students; the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurudwara, a Sikh house of worship in Glen Rock; and Nida ul-Islam, an Islamic center of worship in Teaneck that provides educational and counseling services to the Muslim community.

C.B. Neugroschl, head of the Ma’ayanot Yeshiva, expressed gratitude to Gottheimer for supporting the Jewish community. “Our students, like Jewish students all over the United States, have been on the frontlines of rising antisemitism in their neighborhoods at an alarming rate,” she said in a statement posted by the congressman’s office.

“All Americans, across our country, want their children to be safe and have the security and safety to practice their religion without intimidation or threats of any kind, as an American right enshrined in our Constitution,” she went on to say.

Antisemitism reports in New Jersey more than doubled last year, reaching 830, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization. Bergen County took the brunt of the spike, with the highest number of antisemitic attacks in the state and an almost fourfold increase over the previous year, according to the group.

This includes Teaneck council sessions when protestors allegedly cursed and threatened Jewish citizens, as well as an Englewood council meeting where demonstrators burnt the Israeli flag.

Complaints of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents have also increased, according to state data. A New Jersey man was charged with a federal hate crime last month after reportedly breaking into the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University during the Eid-al-Fitr holiday and causing $40,000 in damages.

According to the FBI’s most recent data, hate crimes in the United States are at an all-time high, dating back to the 1990s.

“Here in America, the greatest country in the world, we must ensure that religious freedom endures,” Gottheimer said Friday. “As we are seeing right now on far too many of our neighborhoods, outside religious institutions, and on college campuses, antisemitism is surging, and there’s not even an attempt to hide it.”