The sense of fear and need for increased security is being felt well beyond the United States.
The Sri Lankan government has said the church bombings may have been in retaliation for the mosque shootings in New Zealand. And the day after the Christchurch terror attack, Shabbat services at synagogues across the country were canceled on the advice of the police. While New Zealand police are no longer providing round-the-clock armed guard at mosques, as they did immediately after the shooting, the mosques that were attacked still have protection.
Barry Werber, who survived the Tree of Life shooting, said he could hardly believe that any service would meet without security. As sad as it makes him, meeting without armed security is now simply shortsighted, he said.
“I had family in the concentration camps; they came over to escape that,” said Mr. Werber, 77, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Poland. “Now it’s raising its head all over again.”
Since the October attack, two of the congregations that had met at Tree of Life have been meeting in chapels at a synagogue nearby — and armed security guards now greet people at the doors.
“How do you not provide that?” asked Aaron Bisno, the rabbi of the host synagogue. This heightened security protocol does comes with a steep price. Two security guards for 13 hours costs more than $1,000 a day, Rabbi Bisno said, a cost prohibitive for many congregations, especially smaller ones. That is particularly demanding these days, when memberships at churches and synagogues nationwide are dwindling in numbers and resources.
Since the Pittsburgh attack in October, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York has conducted over 200 security assessments of synagogues by request and has received inquires from additional synagogues since Saturday.
Dozens of synagogues in the city now employ armed security guards, while others which cannot afford to hire armed security have created plans involving blockading attackers from entering synagogue doors and strategies for evacuation in case of an active shooter, according to David Pollock, director of public policy and security at the council.
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