With high-profile attacks on religious institutions becoming a mainstay in the U.S., one Jewish group is lobbying the federal government for more funding to protect buildings.
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The Jewish Federations of North America brought 400 community leaders to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to stump for an additional $1B allocation to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The initiative provides security funding to religious organizations.
“We don’t expect necessarily to get all the way in one step, we’re pretty realistic about that,” JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut told Bloomberg. “We do believe that the ultimate number that’s needed is $1 billion.”
The organization reported that the U.S. Jewish community spends $765M per year on security after hate crimes targeting the group rose dramatically in the wake of Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel and the state’s protracted military response in Gaza.
In May 2025, two Israeli embassy staff were killed in a shooting outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C.
This week, two teenage gunmen opened fire Tuesday at the San Diego Islamic Center, which also includes a school. Three people were killed in what is being investigated as a hate crime. The two suspects reportedly took their own lives.
In March, a 41-year-old rammed his truck into Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, Michigan’s largest reform synagogue. Preschoolers were in the building at the time.
The temple, whose Rabbi Jen Lader was in D.C. on Monday to lobby for the additional security funding, addressed the California shooting in a social media post.
“To anyone who feels this is excessive, what happened to Temple Israel two months ago, and now, the Islamic Center of San Diego, proves that this is not optional funding,” the post says.
“Every dollar will be necessary to protect houses of worship all over the country.”
The additional funding is also supported by the Council of American Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group.
But an initial prohibition in the program on funding for groups engaged in certain boycotts led some Muslim organizations to not apply because they worried their critiques of Israel would open them up to federal scrutiny.
“The ball is in the Trump administration’s court to prove to the Muslim community that they will get a fair shake in the next grantmaking cycle,” CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw told Bloomberg.
