美国国家公共电台 NPR DHS To Help Jewish Community Centers Enhance Security Protocols

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American Jewish institutions have received more than 120 bomb threats in the last two months. Now the Department of Homeland Security is increasing its support. As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, Jewish community centers have been pressing for the help as they've been targeted by waves of threatening calls and vandalism.

TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE 1: Ever since January, the calls coming in to Jewish community centers have been both vivid and unnerving, much like the three that came into the JCC in Birmingham, Ala., where Betzy Lynch is executive director.

BETZY LYNCH: It is a very disguised sort of digitized voice that indicates that there's a bomb in the building, and then there's some pretty horrific rhetoric 2 about hurting Jewish people.

SMITH: The calls have thrust JCCs around the nation into repeated evacuations. Elderly women doing water aerobics 3 and babies in day care have been rushed out to the streets, leaving whole communities rattled 4.

JEREMY BURTON: Everybody's no more than one or two degrees of separation from someone whose kids ended up on a sidewalk in front of a JCC over the last couple of weeks.

SMITH: Jeremy Burton, head of Boston's Jewish Community Relations Council, says it's particularly disconcerting to younger Jews.

BURTON: Frankly 5, it's a bit of a shock. And maybe we are a bit naive 6, but we sort of maybe assumed that it was something we had mostly left behind.

SMITH: Community leaders across the nation who've been frustrated 7 that the threats have gone on so long have been calling on the federal government to do more to help protect Jewish institutions. Two hundred of them joined a conference call yesterday with Department of Homeland Security officials that ended with the promises of more support. That will include assessing where JCCs are vulnerable and helping 8 them improve - for example, says DHS's Bob Kolasky, how to deal with an active shooter or how to manage these current threats that seem to be intended to cause fear more than harm.

BOB KOLASKY: The advice that we will give is, how do you deal with something that you think is probably not likely to come to fruition? We're not going to tell an organization not to evacuate 9, but we are going to teach them some of the telltale signs that may help them make that decision.

LYNCH: This outreach is unprecedented 10, and it's much, much appreciated.

SMITH: Betzy Lynch says the federal expertise 11 will go a long way to help secure JCCs like hers in Alabama, and she hopes it'll also reassure 12 members and persuade some families who've left in fear to return.

LYNCH: And I think that feeling of knowing that this really is not OK with people reassures 13 us that while we're in a difficult period, the federal government has decided 14 that they're standing 15 with us as well.

SMITH: But others were more circumspect 16. The Anti-Defamation League calls the federal support an important step forward but insists more must be done. For starters, Mark Sokoll of the Greater Boston JCC says authorities should expand efforts to find the perpetrators.

MARK SOKOLL: In the end, the only response that's going to be adequate for us is catching 17 these guys, that these people who are filled with hate can be brought to justice and this can stop.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Security right over here and then IDs and registration 18.

SMITH: Meantime, security is tight at Jewish institutions, like at this Boston event last night.

HELENE WEITZENKORN: I mean look at this synagogue. They are checking people going in here. I've never seen them even have a metal detector 19.

SMITH: Helene Weitzenkorn calls the current climate of anti-Semitism palpable.

WEITZENKORN: I mean I'm almost 64, and I have just never felt this scared.

SMITH: Others took a longer view, noting anti-Semitism's long history. The echoes are disturbing, as one put it, but they're also a reminder 20 that this, too, shall pass. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.

(SOUNDBITE OF PUNCH BROTHERS SONG, "JULEP")