California grants Sonoma synagogue $200,000 to bolster security as antisemitism rises

Amid a national rise in antisemetism, Congregation Shir Shalom, the center for Jewish and Hebrew life in Sonoma, was granted $200,000 in state funds to increase security measures — dollars the congregation has been trying to secure for nearly five years.

Shir Shalom has not been the target of violence or any direct threat, according to board president Jan Chernoff, but incidents of hate directed against Jewish people and congregations have synagogues across the nation on high alert.

The Sonoma congregation was one of seven Sonoma County houses of worship awarded a total of $1.8 million locally in the latest round of grant funding, disbursed in January. The dollars come from Governor's Office of Emergency Services, part of a program that dates back to 2017 and is designed to help nonprofit organizations at risk of violent attacks and hate crimes enhance their physical security.

Statewide, the program handed out $47.5 million to 285 organizations for its latest two-year funding cycle.

Since 2018, an armed security guard has been present at every group event hosted by Congregation Shir Shalom, whose name translates to “Song of Peace.”

“The security guard not only protects us, but adds a level of confidence,” Chernoff said. “(The grant) is going to go a great distance in hardening the campus and making it safer.”

Before the congregation hired a security guard, there were “characters” who would sometimes wander into First Congregational Church, where Shir Shalom holds services, which put members on edge, wary of the strangers’ intentions, Chernoff said.

The temple operated much like Sonoma’s many houses of worship for years, until reality changed for synagogues nationwide.

On Oct. 27, 2018, a man shouting antisemitic slurs opened fire inside Tree of Life Congregation, a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 congregants and wounding six people, including four police officers.

The gunman in that shooting, one of the deadliest rampages against the Jewish community in the United States, was convicted June 23 and could face the death penalty or life in prison.

Steve Finley, Rabbi at Shir Shalom, said the mass shooting was a catalyst for a nationwide increase in security at synagogues, part of a larger wave of measures taken by churches, mosques and other houses of worship amid a violent recurrent pattern.

“Across the country, all congregations hardened their forces,” Finley said.

Shir Shalom may use the grant to add bulletproof windows, reinforce the front door, install security cameras, place better lighting in the parking lot and around the campus and ensure the continued presence of a security guard at its gatherings.

The grant secured by Shir Shalom is the maximum awarded to any one site under the state program.

The other grants in Sonoma County went to: St. Francis Solano School in Sonoma; Hessel Church in Santa Rosa and Sebastopol; Calvary Chapel The Rock church in Santa Rosa; Windsor Christian Church and Windsor Christian Academy; and Victory Outreach in Santa Rosa.

According to the program website, the state started the program with the intention “to provide funding support for physical security enhancements and other security-related activities to nonprofit organizations that are at high risk for violent attacks and hate crimes due to ideology, beliefs or mission.”

Shir Shalom has been chasing the grant funds since 2019, when its newly formed security committee first applied after learning about the program from another congregation.

Applications for the latest funding cycle, beginning Jan. 1 this year, were due in October. The state received 751 applications for funding by the deadline, of which 39% were granted.

St. Francis Solano School, an affiliate of the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa, also received the maximum $200,000 for this grant cycle. Officials at the school did not immediately respond to request for comment from the Index-Tribune before this story’s deadline.

The taxpayer support to bolster security at California houses of worship comes amid a pronounced rise in antisemitic incidents across the United States.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League tracked 3,697 antisemitic incidents nationwide — a 36% increase over the 2,717 incidents tabulated in 2021.

The 2022 figure was “the highest number on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979,” according to a March report from the leading national anti-hate organization.

The report noted that “this is the third time in the past five years that the year-end total has been the highest number ever recorded.”

“We have to look nationally at what’s happening because antisemitism is everywhere,” Avram Goldman, former board president at Shir Shalom, said. “I think most of the people here in Sonoma aren’t antisemitic, but it doesn’t take that many antisemitic people for something bad to happen.”

On June 21, employees at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma found fliers promoting white supremacist rhetoric in books about the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and civil rights.

And last year, Jews across the North Bay voiced concern amid as a known neo-Nazi and hatemonger from Petaluma emerged as the central figure in a campaign to litter neighborhoods with anti-Semitic material.

Finley, who joined Shir Shalom in 2014, worked previously as a Rabbi in Mexico City, where strong security measures were commonplace.

In his first year in Sonoma, he started a safety team, which he used to offer active shooter training to congregation members and bought first aid and trauma kits to have on-site in case of an emergency.

The security committee that was established after the Pennsylvania shooting in 2018 began as an extension of the safety team, but now exists as its own entity to apply for grants and implement more defense measures. Those include providing greeters for services at the congregations with self defense weapons.

The exact plans for implementation of the funding are still in the works between the leaders of Shir Shalom, and First Congregational Church, the building where most of the reinforcements will take place.

“What a pity,” Finely said. “All of this time and energy and resources to battle hatred — its hurts just as much to know these individuals are so filled with hatred, because what a waste of life.”

Shir Shalom was founded in 1995 after a Sonoma resident wrote a letter to the Index-Tribune headlined "Am I the only Jew around here?" Members of the local Jewish community coalesced, and the organization that became Shir Shalom now counts roughly 120 households — over 200 members.

The new state funds will help to keep more of those people safe, Goldman said.

“We have to take security measures because all it takes in one person,” Goldman said. “I hate to have to do it, but it’s the times we live in.”

You can reach Staff Writer Rebecca Wolff at rebecca.wolff@sonomanews.com. On Twitter @bexwolff.