Source: Time
For the past four years, the New Reform Temple in Kansas City, Mo., hasn’t hosted a Shabbat service or other religious event without an armed off-duty police officer present — a standard that Rabbi Alan Londy felt was necessary after a 2014 shooting in the city, where a white supremacist killed three peopleoutside a Jewish community center and assisted living facility.
“Tragedies don’t come at predictable times, so you have to be vigilant all the time unfortunately,” Londy tells TIME. “That’s just part of what it means to be a congregation at this moment in history.”
The New Reform Temple is just one of many places of worship where armed security has become the norm, as a rise in anti-Semitic attacks and other hate crimes has forced religious leaders to take more drastic precautionary measures.
Categories: America, Anti-Semitism, Jews, Religion, The Muslim Times, USA