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Nonprofits Get Federal Anti-Terror Funding
Church-State Issues Divide Jewish Leaders
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
10/20/05 "Washington Post" -- -- Thirty-one nonprofit organizations
in the Washington area, including 14 synagogues and eight hospitals,
have received federal grants ranging from $26,000 to $100,000 to
fortify their facilities under an anti-terrorism program that has
divided Jewish leaders and drawn criticism from the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security.
The grants are part of a $25 million nationwide program that
Congress approved last year and recently renewed for fiscal 2006 to
protect nonprofit groups deemed highly vulnerable to a terrorist
attack.
The Jewish community has long been security conscious because of
terrorist attacks abroad on synagogues and Jewish centers, and that
explains why a large number of Jewish organizations applied for the
grants and received them, said Ronald Halber, executive director of
the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
United Jewish Communities, which represents more than 550 Jewish
organizations in North America, took credit in a news release last
week for lobbying Congress to set up and renew the program.
But the executive board of the Union for Reform Judaism advised
Reform temples not to apply for the funds. In a memo to member
congregations, Reform leaders called the security grants "a serious
violation of church-state separation" and said the $25 million
"could have been better used beefing up first responders and police
protection in high-risk areas."
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the
program is unnecessary and that the department tried unsuccessfully
to have the money taken out of its 2006 budget. State and city
officials already had the authority to award their federal homeland
security money to nonprofit groups, including religious ones, and
creation of the fund forced officials to set up a new disbursement
system, said department spokesman Marc Short.
"There's nothing that would restrict a city from allocating funds to
a church or synagogue that faces a grave danger or risk," Short
said. "We have always said we have felt this was redundant and
unnecessary."
Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who with Sen. Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.) sponsored the legislation creating the program, said the
federal funds protect "hospitals, schools, community centers,
synagogues and churches from terrorist violence."
"I will keep fighting to protect institutions that are vital to our
communities and the physical, social, spiritual and educational
well-being of all Americans," Mikulski said in a statement issued
yesterday.
The $25 million for 2005 was disbursed to 18 metropolitan areas
considered most at risk of terrorist attack. Because state and local
officials made the awards, the federal agency does not yet have a
list of recipients nationwide.
The Washington area was given $4.5 million and has distributed $2.7
million, with the money being administered by the D.C. deputy mayor
for public safety. All 31 applicants succeeded in obtaining grants.
In addition to the 14 synagogues, the recipients included two Jewish
schools and five other Jewish organizations, among them the Jewish
Community Center of Greater Washington and Hillel, a student group.
Among the eight hospitals getting money were Georgetown University
Hospital, Inova Loudoun Hospital, Montgomery General Hospital and
Prince William Hospital. The American National Red Cross and the
Capital Area Food Bank also received funds.
The Baltimore region received about $130,000, but Maryland officials
also made some of their other federal homeland security money
available. About $1.26 million has been given to 47 organizations,
of which 43 are Jewish, including 26 congregations. The only
non-Jewish congregation to receive money was the Islamic Society of
Baltimore.
In Boston, seven of the 25 grant recipients were Jewish
organizations. The others included 12 hospitals, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and the local YMCA.
Officials in Chicago, who gave out $2.7 million to 33 nonprofit
groups, and New York, who awarded $6.3 million to 112 groups,
declined to identify their grant recipients, saying that doing so
could jeopardize the organizations' security.
Under regulations issued by the Homeland Security Department, the
money must be used for "target hardening," such as installing
concrete barriers, surveillance cameras and blastproof doors.
The guidelines on eligibility for the grants say consideration
should be given to organizations that have been the target of
threats or previous attacks by terrorist groups inside or outside
the United States; are at historically or culturally important
sites; would have a role in responding to terrorist attacks; and
have an "overall religious or service operations philosophy that
could cause it to be a potential target."
Alicia Love, campaign and major gift director of the Capital Area
Food Bank, said her organization qualified because it would be
called on to supply food if a disaster occurred. She said it will
use its $100,000 grant for camera surveillance to protect its food
reserves from tampering.
Halber, of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said it was not
hard for Jewish nonprofit groups to demonstrate that they fit the
grant criteria. "Unfortunately, you only have to read the
newspaper," he said, adding that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
sometimes spreads beyond the Middle East and that Jewish facilities
in Europe "are being preyed upon" by anti-Semitic forces.
Zvi Schoenburg, head of Gesher Jewish Day School of Northern
Virginia, which received $100,000, said: "When the criteria were set
up for these grants, it certainly looked like something we would be
eligible for. And as taxpayers, we wanted to believe that our safety
and security is paramount in the eyes of the greater community. . .
. If, God forbid, terrorists struck at a Jewish school, I think that
would be of concern to all citizens in the metropolitan area."
But Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Reform branch of
Judaism's Religious Action Center, said he feared that Jewish
congregations' acceptance of government funding "in the long run
would be bad for religious freedom."
It also weakens arguments long made by Jewish leaders against
government funding for religion-based charities and church-run
schools, he said.
Mark Waldman, director of public policy for the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, disagreed.
He said his branch of Judaism believes that it is appropriate to
accept the grants because "the maintaining of security is a
government responsibility, and the grants are available to all
[nonprofits]. Therefore, it is not a church-state problem because
they're not saying it's just for churches or synagogues. It could be
for museums."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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