28 | JUNE 9 • 2022 

OUR COMMUNITY

T

he Jewish Federation 
of Metro Detroit has 
spun off its security 
program, leading to the 
creation of a standalone 
organization, Jewish 
Community Security Inc. 
(JCSI). Launched March 1, 
JCSI is led by Gary Sikorski, 
who continues 
in his role as 
director of 
community-wide 
security.
“The program 
had grown to the 
point it could no 
longer be a department of 
the Federation,” says David 
Kurzmann, senior director, 
community 
affairs for the 
Federation. “The 
community-wide 
security program 
of the Federation 
has continued to 
evolve and grow 
to take care of 
the needs of the community. 
This is the next step.”
The Federation’s 
recommendation to split 
out the security function 
led to the establishment of 
JCSI, a group made up of 
12 employees, including 
Sikorski, with Federation its 
primary stakeholder. “You’ll 
see even more collaboration,” 
Kurzmann says. 
While the largely 
internal changes will bring 
the security for Jewish 
community entities under 
one roof, it won’t affect how 
security is administered in 

the community, Sikorski 
says. “Other than our logo 
on our shirts and our email 
addresses, it’s business as 
usual,” he explains. 
The change will allow 
JCSI to perform security 
for a broader range of 
organizations, he says, 
explaining that previously 
it could only provide 
security for Federation 
agencies or Federation 
events. Now licensed by 
Michigan’s Licensing and 
Regulatory Affairs (LARA), 
it can provide services 
to Federation agencies, 
community agencies and 
more. “We’re not hanging out 
a shingle to generate business 
with other nonprofits, houses 
of worship or synagogues, 
though we could in the 
future,” Sikorski says.
The security program, 
which still has offices at 
Federation’s building in 
Bloomfield Township, has 
grown from one person 
in 2006 to three in 2009, 
eight in 2013, then to 12 
and soon to be 15, he says. 
“Just by virtue of personnel, 
equipment and areas of 
responsibility, it made sense 
to do this,” he says. “It allows 
us to be more responsive to 
community needs.”
They still respond to 
requests for training from 
synagogues and agencies, 
and stay active in responding 
to requests for consultation, 
security assessment and grant 
assistance, Sikorski adds.
“We have been and will 

continue to always be a 
resource for the entire Jewish 
community,” Sikorski says. 
“We still work side by side 
with all of our Federation 
and community partners.”
Cleveland’s Federation 
has done something similar 
and helped provide a model 
for the security element’s 
separation and JCSI’s 
establishment, Sikorski 
adds. “Cleveland was very 
helpful and very gracious in 
providing us assistance in 
navigating this transition,” 
he says, adding that other 
Federations are also looking 
at having security operations 
stand alone. That said, JCSI 
will be the central address 
for security, supported by the 
Federation. 
“They’re still very much 
involved,” he says. “We are 
a part of delivering those 
services to the Federation 
and to Federation agencies.”
JCSI is also continuing 
to work closely with law 
enforcement partners, the 
Anti-Defamation League 
(ADL), Secure Community 
Network (SCN) and 
community groups, especially 
given the rise of antisemitism 
and hate crimes, Sikorski 
says. 
“We’re very much engaged. 
We’re keeping a finger on 
the pulse of the community 
and potential threats to the 
community,” he says. 
“The safety and security 
of the Detroit Jewish 
community is our primary 
concern.” 

Federation’s security program is now 
a standalone organization.

Community Security Update

Gary 
Sikorski

David 
Kurzmann

KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Zekelman Holocaust Center (the HC) 
will host a virtual discussion Understanding 
the Crisis in Yemen on June 14 at 7 p.m. The 
conflict — now in its eighth year — has 
broken the country and spawned one of 
the world’s worst humanitarian crises. 
 Dr. Gregory Johnsen, author of The 
Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s 
War in Arabia and a former member of the 
U.N. Security Council’s Panel of Experts 
on Yemen, will lead the discussion.
Registration for Understanding the Crisis 
in Yemen is available online at 
www.holocaustcenter.org/June. The 
event will be held virtually on Zoom. 
Johnsen has been a Peace Corps vol-
unteer in Jordan, a Fulbright Fellow in 
Yemen and a Fulbright-Hays Fellow 
in Egypt. In 2014, he was selected as 
BuzzFeed’s inaugural Michael Hastings 
National Security Reporting Fellow, 
where he won a Dirksen Award from the 
National Press Foundation and, in collab-
oration with Radiolab, a Peabody Award. 
From 2016–2018, Johnsen served on 
the Yemen Panel of Experts for the U.N. 
Security Council and, in 2019, he served 
as the lead writer for the Syria Study 
Group. 
His writing on Yemen and terrorism 
has appeared in the New York Times, The 
Atlantic and Foreign Policy. Currently, he 
is a nonresident fellow at the Center 
for Middle East Policy at the Brookings 
Institution. He is also the editor of the 
Yemen Review and a nonresident fellow for 
the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies.
“Dr. Johnsen brings a tremendous 
amount of knowledge and expertise on 
the subject of the war in Yemen and all 
of its atrocities,
” said Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, 
CEO of the Zekelman Holocaust Center. 
“Most importantly, this includes just how 
little the rest of the world knows about 
what happened, what’s happening and 
what can be done about it. It is indeed a 
very important conversation we are proud 
to be hosting.
”
Community partners for the event 
are the Talsky Center for Human Rights 
of Women & Children, Michigan State 
University College of Law and the 
Consulate of the Republic of Yemen-
Detroit. 

Understanding the War 
in Yemen at the HC

