Safety expert details work to keep Jewish Americans safe amid uptick in antisemitic attacks

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Jewish safety experts were traveling with U.S. enforcement officials in Israel when they found themselves in the middle of Hamas’ terror attack. 

Richard Priem told Fox News Digital that whenever there is a conflict between Israel and the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, it has ramifications for Jewish communities around the world. 

Antisemitic attacks have been on the rise in recent years and as the violence in the Middle East continues, security experts are preparing for a further uptick in threats against Jewish Americans in the coming weeks and months. 

Richard Priem, the deputy national director and COO of the Community Security Service (CSS), told Fox News Digital that as soon as the attacks in Israel broke out in the early morning hours of October 7, his organization was already busy preparing security plans. CSS protects Jewish people and their way of life by partnering with Jewish organizations, governmental authorities and law enforcement agencies to provide training, guidance and resources to Jewish community members that protect against the increasing atmosphere of violent incidents and terrorism.

He explained that whenever there is a conflict between Israel and the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip, it has ramifications for Jewish communities around the world and CSS has already seen an increase in incidents since the October 7 attacks. 

"We want every Jewish institution, every Jewish event around the U.S. to have the best level of security possible," he said. "We want them to be able to continue living the Jewish life that we all came to the United States to live. We don't want fear or threats to be an impediment to that. We hope that through our model and through our training, they'll be able to create more peace of mind for communities that feel threatened."

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Richard Priem serves as the deputy national director and COO of the Community Security Service. 

"Today we've trained over 3,000 active volunteers around the country," he added. "We're involved with over 300 synagogues. We have a presence from coast to coast and our mission is simple, to protect Jewish life and the Jewish way of life. Sadly, there's more and more need of that these days than ever."

CSS trains Jewish community members to become security volunteers, working with paid security and law enforcement to provide inside protection and expertise about their community.

"They know the nuances, who belongs and doesn't belong, and they're also going to care more because ultimately it's their friends and family inside," Priem explained. "For them to do their work properly, they have real skin in the game, so to combine those volunteers with paid security and work closely together with law enforcement, they're able to develop a layered security posture around our institutions."

Priem was in Israel when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel and attacked, raped and murdered over a thousand civilians, including women, children and the elderly. CSS professional staff accompanied a group of senior officials and police chiefs from the New York area to Israel for a trip aimed at growing the partnership between the Jewish community and the NYPD.  

"I arrived on Friday in Israel with a group of around 30 senior law enforcement officials from the New York metropolitan area," he explained. "We went there on a mission to participate in a seminar hosted by the Israeli government around anti-Semitism, the kind of threats that the Jewish community faces and how to foster collaboration between Jewish security organizations such as mine with local law enforcement."

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"Unfortunately, we were not able to start the program because on the first day, on Saturday, we woke up at 6:30 because of the sirens going off," he added. "We were only 50 miles north of the Gaza border in a city called Ashdod. Unfortunately, we had all the senior law enforcement officials there, including many chiefs of different police departments, we were running back and forth between the shelter."

He said the experience on the ground during the terrorist attacks that began early Saturday morning gave the New York based law-enforcement leaders a better understanding of the danger faced by the Jewish Community. 

"I can tell you, nothing was more bonding than standing together for hours on end in a shelter where rockets are flying left and right at the building," he said. "If there's one thing that these participants took away from this trip, it's that they understand better the challenges that the Jewish community faces. They are committed to the security of our community. There are officers that are sending back instructions to their departments about how important it was to protect the Jewish community, given what was going on."

CSS staff accompanied a group of New York area senior officials and police chiefs to Israel the day before Hamas terrorists attacked the country. 

"It was a harrowing experience, shocking to be so close to so many horrific things happening and at the same time, it was a bonding experience between us and these senior law enforcement officials," he added. "The collaboration that was established is helping us now keep the community safe."

Priem explained that Jewish communities around the world have been able to develop security organizations similar to CSS that were often created out of necessity for the Jewish community once they realized not every country had a government that historically protected them. 

"In the United States, we've been around since 2007, but you really see that we've received an uptick in interest since the Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh in 2018," he said. "That is really the watershed moment after which the community started to realize, wait a second, we are not immune from antisemitic terrorism and attacks. These things are happening here as well."

He said subsequent attacks including the Poway synagogue shooting in 2019, the Jersey City shooting in 2019 and the Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis in 2022, underscored the importance of security being top of mind for the Jewish community. 

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"I would rather be out of business, but given that the threats exist and that antisemitism levels are rising year after year, according to all the data provided by the FBI and the Anti-Defamation League, we are glad to be able to offer these resources for free to Jewish communities around the United States," he said. 

Priem said the New York law enforcement officers described the attacks they saw in Israel as reminiscent of what happened in New York on 9/11. 

"Some of them said that it felt that they arrived to Israel on September 10th, 2001," he said. "I cannot tell you enough how much empathy, how much support they showed to the Israelis that were around us."

"These are clearly people who dedicate their life to protecting others, they were humble, they had empathy, and all they tried to do is try to be helpful for the people around them," he added. 

Priem said there has been an uptick in antisemitic attacks, which is why organizations like CSS have become a necessity for the Jewish community. 

Once it became clear to them that the conflict would not be resolved anytime soon, Priem and his team started speaking with the U.S. embassy about how to get the delegation of NYPD officers back to New York. Eventually, they were able to evacuate on Sunday afternoon. 

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Priem said the on the ground experience made it clear to CSS members, as well as the delegation of New York officers, how Israel was rallying together in the wake of the crisis despite the horrific, brutal images and videos that detail the violence that unfolded in those days. 

"I definitely think it helped them in a sense [understand] how severe the situation is that Israel and the Jewish community faces, and I definitely feel that it was a renewed commitment, a renewed desire to make sure that the communities, the Jewish institutions within their districts are kept safe."

"Together we have a multilayered security presence," he added. "So for us, working with law enforcement is not new, but I do think that even though we only spent two days together in Israel, the relationships that we've built and the shared experience of going through a situation where we literally had to run to the shelter over 40 times because rockets were shot at us, created a connection at a deeper level."

Going forward, as antisemitic attacks continue to rise around the world, Priem said the most important thing anyone can do is say something if they see something out of the ordinary and avoid anyone is immune from an attack. 

"All of us have a responsibility, all of us have to step up and attacks don't just happen," he said. "There are suspicious activities, there are things that are done before the attack takes place and if all of us Jews, non-Jews, everyone who cares about the safe and inclusive community, use our eyes, use our ears and know to report things that don't seem right to law enforcement, to professional staff, to security guards."

Rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

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"We can together make sure that we keep our community safe and that people that are seeking to use this tension between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, that are trying to jump on the opportunity to use the extremist rhetoric that Hamas leaders are throwing out around the world, that we together can prevent those situations from resulting in harmful incidents, resulting in attacks targeting our community," he said. 

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