Senate Majority Chief Charles E. Schumer has proposed $1.22 billion in new spending to beef up safety for U.S. homes of worship amid a nationwide surge of antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents because the Oct. 7 Hamas terror assaults.
“We’re in a disaster,” the New York Democrat mentioned. “In some ways, the vulnerability and elevated hazard … has by no means been greater.”
The proposal would increase funds out there to synagogues, church buildings, mosques, faculties, Sikh gurdwaras and faith-based group facilities, resembling Jewish group facilities, via grants supplied by the Nonprofit Safety Grant Program.
Traditionally Black Schools and Universities additionally qualify for the funds.
“The rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, the threats to church buildings, locations of worship, and the notion that evil acts and intolerance would possibly merely unfold and mirror some new ‘regular’ is gravely unacceptable. This isn’t the America our forefathers constructed, the America our founders envisioned or the one we signify at the moment,” Mr. Schumer mentioned in a press release.
Mr. Schumer’s proposal would create a $1 billion “reserve fund,” much like monies the Federal Emergency Administration Company can entry for earthquakes and different pure disasters, an concept that Nathan Diament, government director for public coverage on the Orthodox Union, known as “very inventive and really formidable.”
“This unprecedented request matches the peak of antisemitism we’re witnessing in America at the moment,” he mentioned.
The Jewish Federations of North America mentioned they “stand strongly” behind the initiative.
“With antisemitism and anti-Israel acts hovering and elevated concern over lone wolf terror assaults, our group will need to have extra assets to remain protected,” the group mentioned in a weblog publish.
