Jewish leaders warn of Iran-inspired terror threat after synagogue shootings

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Jewish community throughout North America has faced a shocking 900 per cent rise in antisemitic incidents since 2014, according to the Anti-Defamation League data.

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, synagogues, community centres, and campuses have been on heightened alert for violence. In recent weeks, amid the U.S.-Israel airstrike campaign, there have been at least three synagogue shootings in the Toronto area and an attempted attack at a Detroit-area synagogue, in addition to suspected terrorism in Texas, Virginia, and New York.

North American Jews have been vocal about needing stronger security and government support. To understand their concerns, the National Post spoke with Michael Masters, national director and CEO of the Secure Community Network (SCN), the national security organization for the Jewish community of North America, and Glenn Mannella, community security director for the Hamilton Jewish Federation, about the threats they are monitoring and how they are working to protect Jewish sites.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Amid the surge in antisemitic violence and the Iran war, what threats — state-sponsored versus lone-wolf — worry you most for Jewish sites and community members in North America?

Michael Masters: What we have witnessed over the last several years, and certainly since October 7th, and then more presciently since the war with Iran, has been an incredibly elevated threat environment. The potential for acts of targeted violence has increased dramatically, based on what we’re tracking. It becomes less a question of the ideological motivation of the offenders than the normalization of violence across the board, directed towards the Jewish community. Certainly, there are ideological components to that.

As my grandmother always said, when people tell you who they are, listen. So when the Supreme Leader (of Iran), or the former leader and now their current leader, is specifically encouraging attacks against the Jewish community and attacks against Western governments, we take that very, very seriously.

Iran’s new Supreme Leader said in a recent statement that, essentially, we should bring the attack to their homes. “Their” in that sentence has historically been Jews and the United States, and Jewish interests around the world, including in Canada. We’re seeing people answer that call. We have seen multiple shootings in Canada, an active shooter in Texas, an ISIS-inspired attack in New York, a shooting at Old Dominion University by an individual previously associated with ISIS targeting ROTC (young people who are interested in joining the U.S. military). Then, of course, there was the attack at Temple Israel in Michigan.

We anticipate those calls to violence to continue. We tracked the highest number ever of violent posts targeting the Jewish community in North America over five days in the wake of the first Iran strikes — 8,000 violent posts. Those are what we consider threats to life. Those are threats to maim or kill a member of the Jewish community, and they’re coming from people across the ideological spectrum.

These are threats targeting individuals, institutions, or locations across North America.

We then work with the local security professionals, like Glen Mannella or our partners in Toronto and across the United States, to coordinate with local, state, regional, and federal law enforcement on those very real threats.

At the same time, we recognize that the people who say they’re going to attack us or threaten us are just a component of the threats we face, which really gets into the criticality of the local security professionals and the local efforts like in Hamilton and across Canada and the United States to protect institutions through physical security, volunteer and community member components, and law enforcement.

Can you describe SCN’s eight-layered security recommendations and which best practices from those recommendations have proven most effective in de-escalating threats and preventing attacks on Jewish sites, as you’ve seen in the Michigan case?

Masters: The recommendations were released as a way to consolidate a lot of the guidance that we have been providing as security professionals working together across organizations through our federation system, but also national partner organizations, to what I would consider a manageable eight-point list. Most institutions that have been working with a security professional like Glenn or in other communities across Canada have done so to some degree or fully. This was sort of the footstool for ensuring awareness and coordination with law enforcement and our security professionals.

With the attack in Washington, DC, in May of last year, and the Boulder, Colorado, march for the hostages, in both instances, we identified the need to emphasize strong perimeters and push those perimeters out as far as you can. We’ve taken a more forward-leaning posture with community organizations in terms of event registration and identifying who’s showing up at your events, knowing who they are, or working to determine who they are and not allowing people into events who you don’t know or can’t properly vet. We balance the critical calling we have as a people to welcome the stranger with a thoughtful way of welcoming the stranger so that the stranger becomes known to us, to ensure those inside the facility are safe and secure … To guarantee that means we need to be confident of who we’re allowing inside.

Was there anything that you’ve recommended, or any best practices, that helped thwart the attack at Temple Israel?

Masters: It all starts with a strong Jewish community, and the Jewish community in the greater Detroit metro area is a strong, engaged, coordinated community that works together and has come together — all denominations — as a collective. The Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit has a robust security program headed by a former member of law enforcement, just like Glenn and myself, and there have been incredible investments made by the local community across the institutions. Temple Israel has a security team and has had a lot of robust security planning and training, including training just the week before (the attack). If you look at the response across the board, you know the security team responded heroically in real time. The teachers, faculty, and staff all did what they were trained to do, as did the kids. The attacker’s objectives were not met, and that was accomplished because of the incredible investments in security they’ve made.

Let’s discuss cross-jurisdictional threats like the June 2025 Brooklyn synagogue plot by a Pakistani national — how do these reflect growing ISIS-inspired risks, and what role does the Iran war play in amplifying such plots?

Masters: Iran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism in the world. They have shown that they are not abashed about working to direct, enable, or inspire attacks around the world, including in the United States and Canada. We recognize that if our adversaries are going to flow through borders and jurisdictions or find people willing to do so, then our security needs to ensure that it is completely collaborative and connected appropriately across borders.

Whether it’s between Detroit and Windsor, whether it’s between the United States and Canada, or whether it’s between the United States, Canada, and Israel, that’s the reality of the threat environment. ISIS, in particular, has made a point of working to inspire people to undertake attacks in the West if you read their publications and listen to their calls for violence, and Al-Qaida has done the same.

The conflict in Iran has increased those calls for violence. We’ve traditionally operated with a few understandings of what the red lines were for the Iranians when they would potentially mobilize or direct their own assets or cells located overseas or seek to enable people to undertake attacks through funding, materials, or calls to feed an effort to inspire people to undertake attacks. The most significant red line was considered an existential threat to the regime, which included the killing of their supreme leader. We saw both of those red lines crossed, with the U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran. While there has been a concerted effort to systematically degrade Iran’s capability,  a lion is most dangerous when it’s on its last legs …. And we have heard them calling for violence, which we take very, very seriously.

There’s an emerging transnational threat of white nationalist “Active Clubs” linking U.S. and Canadian extremists. How is SCN monitoring their shift from fitness groups to street violence?

Masters: Individuals radicalized to violent extremism move between ideologies at different points or shift in ideology. There’s strong academic work on individuals inspired by ISIS later moving to supremacist ideology or vice versa. It’s no different than street gangs in the United States — exacerbation of grievances, identification of those grievances, promises of remedies. What’s particularly interesting about supremacists, Nazi ideology, and Islamist extremist ideology is their shared hatred of the Jewish community and shared focus on the Jewish community. Former U.S. Ambassador on antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt has talked about the horseshoe idea of violent extremism or hate ideology between Islamist extremists and supremacists meeting on an equal plane. The comedian Ricky Gervais noted it was a circle, and people move around the circle but are always on some point of that circle. We’ve seen those groups work to specifically recruit people across borders, adhering to different ideologies, creating additional complexities. It emphasizes why threat management and identification of these individuals is important. We’re deeply appreciative of the work that law enforcement and public safety are doing in Canada and the United States, whether it’s the RCMP or the FBI. Ultimately, the things that will stop ideology at the door are good physical security and training by our security professionals in our communities.

The Jewish Security Network was launched in 2024 by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, modelling SCN. How do your shared priorities on threat monitoring, lockdowns, and active intruder preparation fill gaps for Canadian Jewish sites, especially after the recent spate of shootings?

Masters: These investments by Jewish communities across Canada and the U.S. have increasingly viewed the threat environment as interconnected and global. There’s been greater coordination not just domestically within the U.S. or Canada, but between the security initiatives — precisely because adversaries are crossing borders and boundaries quite fluidly, going to places we would not consider traditional targets. Malik Faisal Akram came from the UK in 2021 to Colleyville, Texas, to target the Jewish community in a hostage event at a synagogue. We’ve all worked much more closely. We host an annual summit bringing together security professionals from across North America to talk best practices and share learnings from case studies and the threat environment. Early in my tenure, I visited Toronto and Montreal to share best practices. That’s a bidirectional information exchange making us stronger as a Jewish community, particularly in the diaspora.

What exact community-led measures—like JSN/SCN intel-sharing, drills, and site hardening—are in place to secure synagogues and JCCs amid these threats, and how omnipresent have security concerns become for institutions?

Masters: Across the federation system, which includes Canada and the United States, we estimate that around US$765 million a year is being spent by the Jewish community to secure our institutions. This can use upwards of 20 per cent of annual budgets on security costs. This should not be the amount of money we need to spend in democracies to secure a faith-based community. It’s a reflection of the strength and resiliency of the Jewish community that we can resource that. We need to double down on it, and we need our federal partners in the United States and Canada to step in, like the UK government just did, stepping in quickly for ambulances (targeted in this attack in London). There’s a real burden to the costs when institutions have to decide if they can afford a guard or have to cut a teaching or clergy position. Unfortunately, like HVAC systems and Shabbat lunch, this is a cost absorbed into the budget in today’s reality. As for the model being deployed across over 550 Jewish communities across North America, Glenn will articulate.

Glenn Mannella: One of the core duties of security directors like me is to conduct threat and vulnerability risk assessments on all Jewish institutions in our community. That was one of the first things I was trained to do when I joined SCN, and experts came up to teach me. It allows thorough examination of facilities — synagogues, community centers, family services — and identifies areas of improvement for security. We look at the physical security of the building, safety and emergency plans, and make recommendations. We’ll help write new emergency and safety plans, work with them to apply for grants … and we provide training to volunteer security staff, lay leadership, community members, including awareness training, identifying suspicious behavior, deescalating conflict, countering active threat training — run, hide, fight — and stop the bleed training. That’s the on-the-ground stuff security directors like me conduct.

For Jewish institutions, what website and physical security tweaks do you recommend to deter plots like the one in Brooklyn last summer?

Mannella: As far as physical security recommendations, it’s not a secret. We recommend things such as a safety film to prevent your windows from being breached, secured doors, multi-layered security, and ballards, if necessary, to prevent vehicles from getting close, as well as CCTV and good lighting.

When we host events, we don’t advertise where it is until people have registered, and we have screened them to make sure they’re people we want at our facilities and events. That’s something I don’t think any other community has to do — hide the location of their events. We always recommend that facilities have a cyber expert because of the number of cyber attacks they face.

Masters:  Because of recent events like the Capital museum shooting and Boulder, Colorado, we convened a national group of security directors and law enforcement to review event guidance. We released new comprehensive event planning guidance for security professionals and a community event planning guide checklist. Boiled down: If you’re thinking about having an event, call your security professional. We’re encouraging organizations to be thoughtful about what they put online — dates, times of events, and registration requirements. Almost every synagogue now requires pre-registration and ticketing for High Holidays, where we attract those least likely to walk in otherwise. So it isn’t overly burdensome …. And security can lead to better engagement. Event registration is a perfect opportunity for development staff to call and get to know people personally, truly inviting them into the community.

How has the heightened threat environment changed security protocols at Jewish institutions in North America, and what message does SCN have for communities about preparedness?

Our message about preparedness is very simple: As we saw in Michigan, you do not rise to the occasion; you fall back to your level of preparedness. The investment in security is truly the down payment for ensuring that Jewish life can remain open, visible, and resilient.

The testimony to that is that within hours after the attack on Temple Israel, while certainly there was a level of anxiety in certain communities, by and large, Jewish institutions remained open. The community remained engaged, and we said we are not going to be subjected to terror to such a degree that we are afraid to walk into our institutions.

We have done the work over five, over decades, and certainly over the last five to 10 years, to make these investments to ensure that Jewish life could remain open. And if I go back to the simplest story we tell our kids, it’s Noah and the Ark. When did Noah build the ark? Before it began to rain. So the investment in this security is really building that ark, that shield, that is going to protect us before the rainy day.

Our message to those who would seek to do otherwise is that we are not going away. We are not going anywhere. We’re going to stand up and be strong. And we need some of our partners to stand up with us, particularly government funding and support, and our coordination with other faith-based groups.

National Post

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