Religious leaders, lawmakers push for $1 billion to secure houses of worship

Eric Fingerhut, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, speaks at an event in D.C. on May 18, 2026. JFNA organized an advocacy fly-in of more than 400 Jewish leaders to Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to support more funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which offers funding to strengthen security at houses of worship. Photo courtesy of the Jewish Federations of North America hide caption toggle caption Photo courtesy of the Jewish Federations of North America At a recent Shabbat service in West Bloomfield, Mich., Rabbi Jen Lader shared plans to lobby Congress to pour more funding into a federal program that strengthens security at houses of worship. "We are not asking Congress to just protect Jews – we are asking Congress to protect every community of Americans that gathers to pray. And we are asking with the full weight of what we have just lived through behind us," she said, referencing the March attack on her congregation of Temple Israel. The fact that no one was killed other than the attacker is a credit, Lader said, to their security personnel and rigorous staff training. "If we had not had those resources and that funding, this would have been a really different story," she told NPR. "And we cannot allow a single other community to experience something as horrific as we've experienced, knowing that there were resources that could have gone into saving lives." Lader and over 400 other Jewish leaders travelled to D.C. …