The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has announced that is it partnering with the Community Security Service (CSS) to increase the safety of Jewish communities through intelligence, information sharing and security training for Jewish volunteers.
The new partnership will pair subject matter experts from the ADL’s Center on Extremism with 5,000 trained security volunteers from the CSS, a leading Jewish volunteer organization that focuses on training volunteers in basic security procedures so they can help to protect hundreds of synagogues and community events each year.
The aim is to help increase volunteers’ awareness of the latest incarnations of anti-Semitism.
The CSS will also share its reports with regional volunteers and with the ADL so they can focus on recent trends.
“The recent rise in anti-Semitic incidents and reported hate crimes bears out the need for partnering in a way that seeks to tangibly improve the security of American Jewish institutions,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “Through this partnership, the CSS’s security volunteers will gain increased knowledge of the nature and scope of anti-Semitism, and ADL’s experts, who monitor these trends, will have an improved understanding about the security situation on the ground.”
Greenblatt added: “The CSS has successfully established a security volunteer model long employed by Jewish communities across the globe, one that has proven successful in protecting institutions and saving lives. We look forward to combining our respective capabilities in order to create an even higher level of protection for our community.”
The organizations will also conduct training for the other’s volunteers and staff using their expert knowledge, with the CSS’s volunteers receiving training from ADL’s expertsin anti-Semitic incidents and hate crimes and the ADL’s staff receiving training in security from the CSS’s security experts.
“Each of our organizations plays a distinct role in the ongoing fight against the rise of anti-Semitism and the myriad of violent extremist actors targeting our community,” said CSS CEO Evan Bernstein. “At the same time, in order for us as a community to lower our vulnerability in the face of tangible threats and intractable issues like anti-Jewish animus, it is incumbent upon us to pool our resources and expertise in meaningful and measurable ways.”