Non-Profits, Religious Organizations Receive Federal Anti-Terror Funds

October 20, 2005

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902316.html?referrer=emailarticle

On October 20, 2005 The Washington Post reported, "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... The $25 million for 2005 was disbursed to 18 metropolitan areas considered most at risk of terrorist attack. Because state and local officials made the awards, the federal agency does not yet have a list of recipients nationwide."