City Jewish group tightens security

New emergency alert system a response to hate incidents: CEO

The Jewish Federation of Edmonton is working to strengthen security in response to recent bomb threats at Jewish community centres and schools across North America.

The umbrella organization is changing its emergency protocol, specifically how it alerts Jewish schools, synagogues and seniors’ centres in the event of a bomb threat or other dangerous situations.

The federation now has a telephone tree for distributing urgent messages and is in the midst of adopting a text-message alert system similar to the one used by the University of Alberta.

If one building receives a bomb threat, other organizations will be notified instantly and can alert their members.

“We’re just trying to be prepared,” said Edmonton federation chief executive Debby Shoctor, adding the emergency improvements are in response to recent waves of hate incidents and violent threats to Jewish institutions in the United States and Canada.

The Anti-Defamation League says 15 Jewish institutions in the U.S. — including four ADL offices — received bomb threats last week, bringing the total number of bomb threats since January to 148.

Threats have also targeted Canadian Jewish community centres and schools recently in Calgary, Toronto, London, Ont., Vancouver and Winnipeg.

“We will stand by you every day in the face of intolerance, prejudice and outright criminal acts,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a statement last week.

“We understand the fear and anxiety each one of these threats creates in the Jewish community, especially when the locations targeted are places where Jewish families and children gather,” he continued.

The Jewish Federation of Edmonton has been working closely with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ National Community Security Program and with local police.

The federation sits on the Jewish community liaison committee of the city police chief ’s community advisory council and speaks with their committee’s designated police officer about once a month.

The Jewish liaison committee is scheduled to meet with the Muslim committee on March 24 to share advice.

The federation is also planning to invite Centre for Israel and Jewish Affair’s security chief Ryan Hartman to speak at a June interfaith security event.

Edmonton city police investigated 128 hate-related occurrences in 2016, down slightly from last year.

But the federation has received numerous calls in 2017 from concerned community members.

“People are worried about whether to send their kids to school and attend programs, if they should come, what type of security there is, and just in general, about bomb threats and violence,” said Tal Toubiana, the federation’s chief of security.

“We just want to make sure we’re taking the right security measures.”