$765 Million a Year and Counting: Inside the Escalating Cost of Keeping American Jews Safe

Passover 2026 opened on the evening of April 2 with Jewish communities across the United States operating under what the Secure Community Network called "the most elevated and complex threat environment" in recent memory [1]. Three weeks earlier, a Hezbollah-inspired attacker rammed a pickup truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, while more than 100 preschool children were inside, before exchanging gunfire with security officers [2]. No children were harmed — a fact attributed directly to the armed guards on site — but the attack crystallized a reality that Jewish institutions have been reckoning with for years: the cost of participation in Jewish communal life now includes a substantial, and growing, security tax.

The Numbers: A Decade of Acceleration

The Anti-Defamation League's 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents — the most recent complete annual count — documented 9,354 incidents across the United States, the highest figure in the organization's 46 years of tracking [3]. That represents a 5% increase over the 8,873 incidents recorded in 2023 and a 344% increase over the prior five years [3]. For the first time, a majority of incidents — 58%, or 5,452 — involved elements related to Israel or Zionism [3].

Source: ADL Audit of Antisemitic Incidents

Data as of Apr 1, 2025CSV

FBI data tells a parallel story through a narrower lens. The bureau's 2024 hate crime report, released in August 2025, counted 1,938 anti-Jewish hate crimes — a 5.8% increase from 2023 and the highest number since the FBI began collecting data in 1991 [4]. Physical assaults, the most severe category, rose 21% [4]. Jews, who make up roughly 2% of the U.S. population, were the targets of 69% of all religion-based hate crimes [5].

Source: FBI Hate Crime Statistics

Data as of Aug 5, 2025CSV

Both tracking systems have limitations. The ADL count includes non-criminal incidents such as harassment and propaganda distribution, which inflates its totals relative to the FBI's crime-based figures. The FBI data, meanwhile, depends on voluntary reporting by roughly 16,000 law enforcement agencies, meaning the true number of criminal incidents is almost certainly higher than what appears in the statistics.

The Temple Israel Attack and Its Aftermath

The March 12 attack on Temple Israel brought the threat into visceral focus. Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, a 41-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, waited in the synagogue's parking lot for more than two hours before driving his truck deep into the building [2]. A security officer was struck and knocked unconscious but survived. Ghazali died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after a firefight with security personnel [2].

The FBI later classified the attack as "a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan" [6]. Investigators found that an Israeli drone strike in Machghara, Lebanon, on March 5 had killed two of Ghazali's brothers, a nephew, and the child of his sister-in-law — an apparent catalyst [2]. The attack became a focal point in the pre-Passover security briefing where New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch told community leaders, "It is clear that we will be in a heightened state of alert for the foreseeable future" [7].

The Price Tag of Protection

Jewish communities in the United States now spend upward of $760 million per year on security for synagogues, schools, community centers, and cultural events [8]. A typical Jewish organization devotes roughly 14% of its annual budget to security. An armed guard costs approximately $90,000 per year; a full-time community security director runs about $160,000 [8]. For institutions that rely on contract security during high-risk periods, short-term armed guard coverage costs approximately $3,200 for four weeks at a single synagogue, scaling to $14,400 for schools and $22,400 for JCCs that require more shifts [9].

Nearly all of the 52 synagogues surveyed by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism reported hiring armed guards or off-duty police officers [10]. The Secure Community Network recommends armed security as a baseline, along with secured entry points, strict entrance procedures, and volunteer training [10].

Federal support for this infrastructure flows primarily through FEMA's Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which allocated $274.5 million in fiscal year 2025 [11]. The program allows at-risk nonprofits to apply for up to $200,000 per location, but demand far outstrips supply: in 2024, roughly 7,600 applicants sought nearly $1 billion in grants, and only 43% were approved [12]. More than 130 House members signed a letter urging appropriators to increase the program to $500 million for FY 2026 [11].

Source: FEMA / Congressional Research Service

Data as of Jul 28, 2025CSV

But even that expanded figure may be moot. As of Passover, the NSGP application process was frozen. A DHS shutdown — triggered by a standoff between Senate Democrats demanding oversight limits on ICE operations and Republicans insisting on clean funding — halted grant processing before applications due February 1 could be reviewed [1][13]. Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, described the freeze as coming at "the worst possible time" and noted that "there's no other faith-based community in the United States that needs to spend $760 million a year, at a minimum, on security that we do" [1].

Who Is Threatening Whom: Parsing the Threat Landscape

The threats facing Jewish communities do not come from a single ideological direction. Law enforcement and researchers identify at least four distinct strands: white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, Islamist-inspired extremism, elements of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, and anti-Zionist actors who cross the line from political advocacy into harassment or violence [14].

White supremacist groups distributed antisemitic propaganda in 962 incidents across 47 states in 2024, with Patriot Front as the most prolific distributor [14]. At the same time, 16 terrorist plots or attacks targeting Jews, Zionists, or Israelis have been documented since January 2020, with nine occurring between July 2024 and June 2025 [15]. The Temple Israel attack fell squarely in the Islamist-inspired category.

On campuses, nearly 200 incidents of antisemitic harassment and vandalism targeting Jewish organizations were documented between October 2023 and October 2025, though the ADL's 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card noted progress, with 58% of assessed colleges receiving A's and B's, up from 23.5% in 2024 [16].

The convergence of these threats complicates both policy and public understanding. As researchers at George Washington University's Program on Extremism have observed, ideologically distinct movements — far-right, Islamist, and far-left — "converge on a shared target: Jews," with each escalatory cycle in the Middle East energizing exposure to extremist content [14]. Conflating these categories, however, risks distorting responses: campus political activism, even when hostile, is categorically different from Hezbollah-inspired terrorism, and treating them interchangeably can produce policies that are both overbroad and underprotective.

The International Comparison

Jewish communities in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany operate with more mature communal security infrastructure, in part because they have faced sustained threats for longer. Between 2021 and 2023, antisemitic incidents increased 75% in Germany, 82% in the UK, and 185% in France [17]. On a per-capita basis, Germany reported over 38 incidents per 1,000 Jewish residents, while the UK saw 13 per 1,000 [17].

European governments have responded with direct state involvement in communal protection. Belgium has deployed soldiers to guard Jewish sites. France stations armed police and military personnel outside synagogues and Jewish schools as standard practice. In March 2026, a wave of attacks on Jewish sites across Europe prompted the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium to announce coordinated new security measures [18].

The leading representative bodies of the French, German, and British Jewish communities formed a "JE3" alliance in May 2025 to coordinate advocacy and share security best practices [19]. The U.S. model, by contrast, relies more heavily on private expenditure and the grant-application process, placing the burden disproportionately on communities themselves. Whether the European model of direct state protection is more effective or simply reflects different political traditions is debated — but the gap in government commitment is visible.

The Disparity: Large Synagogues vs. Small Congregations

The security infrastructure described above is concentrated in large metropolitan congregations. Institutions with seven-figure security budgets can afford professional directors, armed guards, surveillance systems, and hardened entry points. Smaller congregations — particularly "shtiebels" with fewer than 200 members and little or no staff — face a fundamentally different reality [12].

Many small congregations lack the administrative capacity to apply for the NSGP, a process that requires detailed vulnerability assessments and grant-writing expertise. Even when they do apply, fewer than half of all NSGP applicants receive funding [12]. The result is a two-tier system where the most visible and well-resourced Jewish institutions are also the best protected, while smaller communities in rural areas or lower-income urban neighborhoods rely on ad hoc measures.

Some organizations have attempted to bridge this gap. UJA-Federation of New York launched a program to fund security at the city's smallest Orthodox synagogues [20]. In the wake of the DHS shutdown, new initiatives emerged to cover guard costs for smaller congregations during high-risk periods [1]. But these are stopgap measures, not systemic solutions. The NSGP itself was designed to fill this gap, and its freeze has made the disparity more acute.

The Counterargument: Is Securitization Counterproductive?

Not everyone agrees that the current trajectory of hardening Jewish institutions is the right response. A body of criticism, documented in academic research and communal debate, raises several concerns.

The first is psychological. Researchers writing in the journal Safety Science have described synagogue security as a form of "white noise" — necessary but inherently in tension with the welcoming atmosphere that religious communities seek to create [21]. Visible security measures, from armed guards to metal detectors, serve as constant reminders of threat, and some communal leaders worry that this environment drives anxiety rather than reducing it.

The second is structural. Critics argue that the $760 million annual security expenditure represents resources diverted from education, community programming, and outreach — and that security spending addresses symptoms rather than causes [22]. As one commentator wrote in the Times of Israel, "The problem is not Jewish vulnerability but a society tolerant of Jew-hatred" [22].

The third concern involves civil liberties. The intelligence-sharing arrangements between Jewish security organizations and federal or local law enforcement — particularly through the Secure Community Network's liaison role — raise questions about the scope of monitoring. While no major documented cases of over-broad surveillance of Jewish communities themselves have emerged from these specific partnerships, civil liberties advocates have expressed broader concern about the expansion of religious-institution surveillance infrastructure and its potential for mission creep, particularly when threat assessments expand to include political speech.

These criticisms do not have easy answers. The Temple Israel attack demonstrated that armed security can save lives. But the question of whether the overall securitization trend is proportionate, sustainable, and equitable remains open.

The Psychological and Communal Toll

The ADL and Jewish Federations of North America published a joint study in 2025 finding that more than half of Jewish Americans experienced at least one form of antisemitism in the prior 12 months [23]. Fifty-seven percent said they now believe antisemitism is "a normal Jewish experience" [23].

The mental health data is concrete. Nearly one-third of respondents who experienced or witnessed an antisemitic incident in the prior year exhibited signs of anxiety; one in five showed signs of depression [23]. Behavioral changes are widespread: one in five Jews who wore visibly Jewish items before October 7, 2023, stopped doing so. Forty-eight percent said they had taken steps to strengthen personal security. Fourteen percent said they had devised an escape plan from the country [23].

The effects on communal participation are more mixed. The ADL study found that nearly one-third of Jewish Americans reported increased participation in Jewish life — a counterintuitive finding that suggests threat can also produce solidarity [23]. But liberal denominations continue to see synagogue mergers and closures driven by demographic and financial pressures that the security burden compounds. Jewish day school enrollment data for 2025–2026 has not yet been published, and its trajectory will be an important indicator of whether families are pulling back from institutional Jewish life or doubling down.

What Comes Next

If the DHS shutdown persists, Jewish institutions face the prospect of funding their entire security apparatus out of pocket during a period of elevated threat. The $274.5 million NSGP allocation for FY 2025 remains unprocessed. The $500 million that congressional advocates have sought for FY 2026 is theoretical until appropriations legislation passes.

The broader question is whether the current model — in which Jewish communities bear the primary financial and organizational responsibility for their own protection — is adequate to the threat environment that FBI data, ADL tracking, and the Temple Israel attack all describe. European comparisons suggest alternative models, but they require a level of direct government commitment that has not been part of the American approach.

For the families sitting down to Seder tables this week, the calculus is more immediate. The security guard at the door is both reassurance and reminder. The cost of that guard is both a line item in a synagogue budget and a measure of something harder to quantify — the price of practicing one's faith in a country where, by the FBI's own count, doing so has never carried more risk.