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Editorial
Touting School Security Isn't Being Alarmist
W
hen a lone gunman laid
siege on Sandy Hook
Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., last December, ripping
into the already tattered fibers of our
national conscience, the Jewish com-
munity was reminded once more about
being ever vigilant in its preschools,
day schools and afternoon schools.
The Dec.14 massacre, among
America's worst mass shootings,
involved a deranged gunman, armed
with a semi-automatic rifle, blast-
ing his way inside Sandy Hook. He
murdered 20 first-graders in two
classrooms and also six women before
killing himself.
Jewish schools, diligent as they
are about first-class security, aren't
immune from breaches. But they must
limit vulnerabilities and their effects.
Jewish Detroit schools, under the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit's umbrella, have long main-
tained stringent security plans and
strategies.
As a new school year approaches,
student safety once again commands
the glare of public scrutiny. Nationally
reported camp and school shootings,
from the Los Angeles JCC in 1999
to Sandy Hook in 2012, underscore
the importance of guarding against
attacks, whether motivated by dis-
gruntlement, anger or a hatred of
Jews.
Drawing the spotlight is an infor-
mative new security guide prepared
especially for Jewish schools, Jewish
camps and Jewish organizations.
Baltimore-based security expert
Frank Storch developed the com-
prehensive guide, titled Keep Your
School Safe. His noble objective is to
help schools do a thorough security
assessment to assist in evaluating and
improving existing building security
for all school-
related activities.
U.S. Department
of Homeland
Security, founda-
tion and chari-
table grants can
help cover the
cost of pursu-
An informative guide to ass
ing ideas that
and implementing an fictive a
resonate from
afilmelable security program for
North American Jewish School,
the guide or from
other sources.
The free guide bears studying here
in Metro Detroit, certainly by the
Jewish community, but also by sup-
porting law enforcement agencies.
It deserves a place on the table of
actively reviewed emergency tools.
Steve Freedman, head of school
at Hillel Day School of Metropolitan
Detroit, found the guide helpful in
validating his Farmington Hills campus
security protocol.
"The safety and security of the
Hillel community are of the highest
priority," he told the JN. "I found the
document to be affirming. Hillel has a
great security team that works closely
with the community."
While not a finished emergency pre-
paredness plan, the guide is a means
to proactively think security. Sections
cover such key concerns as protec-
tion on school grounds, lockdown
procedures, and proper safety and
security training for teachers and staff.
Knowing what
to do in a crisis
can be the differ-
ence in averting
disaster.
The 33-page
guide was made
possible by
Storch's two
Baltimore-based
charitable non-
profits: Chesed
Fund Limited
and Project Ezra. Secure Community
Network, operating under the
Conference of Presidents of Major
Jewish Organizations rubric, endorses
it.
Locally, Federation's security team
is charged with assuring top security
is in place throughout the Jewish
community. The team is a pivotal
component in creating a vigilant, pro-
tected learning environment. It takes
stock of security risks and needs,
makes recommendations and issues
periodic alerts in times of heightened
security. It also shares publications
on recommended methods to keep
community buildings, congregants and
students safe.
The Anti-Defamation League's
Bloomfield Township-based regional
office is represented on the commit-
tee, bringing to the conversation its
expertise in tracking patterns or ten-
dencies that might degenerate into
anti-Semitic or anti-Israel attacks on
the Michigan Jewish community.
The Jewish community can never
overreach in striving to lower the
vulnerability threat in it schools. Even
the federal government recognizes
the Jewish community is at greater
risk; Jewish institutions have received
the highest proportion of Department
of Homeland Security grants given for
houses of worship and schools.
The beauty of Keep Your School
Safe lies in the breadth of its perti-
nent, practical safety and security
offerings. Attackers might circumvent
two security standards in sizing up
a target, but chances are they would
never pick up on all of a school's
changing safeguards.
Learning is central to who we are as
Jews. And our children are our most
precious resource. Clearly, our schools
deserve the highest-possible levels of
security.
❑
Download Keep Your School Safe at
www.keepyourschoolsafe.com .
Commentary
Peace Talks: Same Approach Means Same Results
JNS.org
L
ike most Israelis, I am an eternal
optimist. Living day to day in our
neighborhood and faced with con-
tinued threats to our legitimacy and even
our existence, what choice do we have?
That being said, I am extremely pessi-
mistic about the latest round of peace talks
that have been initiated in Washington,
D.C. There is no shortage of reasons why I
should be skeptical, but what worries me
most are the personalities involved in these
talks and the faulty premises they represent.
Almost 20 years after the late Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin attempted to
conjure arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, then
the PLO leader, into a worthy partner for
peace, it seems that we have not learned
the necessary lessons from the past. As the
"peace process" continued to hit bumps
along the way, Israel and our American
allies attempted many different variations,
48 August 22 • 2013
jrk
which all led to the same failed result. We
ties at the table. In most professions, when
initiated staged withdrawals and imple-
one fails at his job and leaves the project
mented unilateral disengagements. At
in question in chaos and complete disar-
times, we included the Europeans
ray, he is most definitely not
and our Arab neighbors in the
asked to keep working on the
process, while at key points, we
task at hand. Again and again
negotiated secretly without any
and again. In fact, he is usually
third-party involvement. The
fired. Not so when it comes to
European Union was used to
the "peace process industry:'
monitor border crossings; and
Saeb Erekat is the main rep-
donor countries were asked to
resentative for the Palestinian
invest in an "economic peace:'
delegation. He has held this
Let us be brutally frank: None
position in one form or another
of this worked in changing the
since 1991. Despite the hours
dynamics of the conflict or
logged with his Israeli counter-
Danny Danon
convincing the Palestinians to
parts, and the countless inter-
Israeli Deputy
completely abandon hatred and
views he has granted to Western
Defense
violence and recognize that the
news-media sources where he
Minister
Jewish state is here to stay.
extols peace and reconcilia-
Perhaps the problem with
tion, Erekat has not brought
Israeli-Palestinian conflict nego-
the Palestinians even one inch
tiations lies not with the process, but with
closer to peaceful existence with Israel.
the people involved in representing the par-
More troubling, it is clear that he never
really revised his radical views about the
Jewish state. During the second intifada,
Erekat appeared on live international
television to accuse Israel of massacring
500 Palestinians in Jenin while completely
ignoring the facts showing that one-tenth
of that number had been killed and most
of those were armed terrorists. Further,
as recently as 2007, Erekat is belligerently
on record as denying the possibility of the
Palestinians ever recognizing Israel's exis-
tence as a Jewish state.
Representing the United States at the
latest round of talks is former ambassador
Martin Indyk. Like Erekat, Indyk has also
been a major player in the peace industry
since the early 1990s; he also can point to
zero achievements in bringing peace and
prosperity to our region.
On the contrary, when Indyk served as
the American ambassador to Israel during
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first
term, he was known for his disparaging