washingtonpost.com
Nonprofits Get Federal Anti-Terror Funding
Church-State Issues Divide Jewish Leaders
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 20, 2005; B01
Thirty-one nonprofit organizations in the Washington area, including 14 synagogues and eight hospitals, have received federal grants ranging from $26,000 to $100,000 to fortify their facilities under an anti-terrorism program that has divided Jewish leaders and drawn criticism from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The grants are part of a $25 million nationwide program that Congress approved last year and recently renewed for fiscal 2006 to protect nonprofit groups deemed highly vulnerable to a terrorist attack.
The Jewish community has long been security conscious because of terrorist attacks abroad on synagogues and Jewish centers, and that explains why a large number of Jewish organizations applied for the grants and received them, said Ronald Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
United Jewish Communities, which represents more than 550 Jewish organizations in North America, took credit in a news release last week for lobbying Congress to set up and renew the program.
But the executive board of the Union for Reform Judaism advised Reform temples not to apply for the funds. In a memo to member congregations, Reform leaders called the security grants "a serious violation of church-state separation" and said the $25 million "could have been better used beefing up first responders and police protection in high-risk areas."
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said that the program is unnecessary and that the department tried unsuccessfully to have the money taken out of its 2006 budget. State and city officials already had the authority to award their federal homeland security money to nonprofit groups, including religious ones, and creation of the fund forced officials to set up a new disbursement system, said department spokesman Marc Short.
2006-09-20
16:53:01
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