The collaboration marked an expansion of CSS\u2019s efforts to protect American Jewish communities, drawing on lessons from terror attacks in Israel, as US Jews grapple with the threat of mass casualty incidents caused by terrorism.<\/p>\n
Israel trauma lessons come to US<\/p>\n
CSS, a nonprofit, trains Jewish community members<\/a> in security methods to protect synagogues and Jewish events around the US. The program also recently launched street patrols<\/a> in Jewish areas of New York City. Magen David Adom (MDA) is Israel\u2019s national emergency response service.<\/p>\n The partnership\u2019s first two-day course for CSS volunteers was held in CSS\u2019s headquarters in Westchester County, north of New York City. The group keeps the exact location and the identities of volunteers and some staff confidential for security reasons.<\/p>\n \t Twenty volunteer guards attended. They hailed from around the US, including the New York region, Philadelphia, Illinois, Florida and Washington, DC. CSS says its network includes more than 7,000 volunteers at more than 500 synagogues.<\/p>\n After completing the course, the volunteers will incorporate the lessons into training for other guards at their synagogues.<\/p>\n Benjamin Erbs, CSS\u2019s senior vice president for training and security, said the program\u2019s goal was to teach guards how to begin treating victims and preparing for first responders\u2019 arrival in the aftermath of an attack.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we learned from past terror attacks is that it takes time for the EMTs, even police, or if it\u2019s a fire department, to come on the scene, and even if they come, if the scene is still hot, they won\u2019t engage,\u201d Erbs said in an interview. \u201cThat means you, as the security personnel, are left with the situation on hand and you don\u2019t have help at the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n Guards\u2019 priority is preventing and disrupting attacks, and the medical protocol only begins after a scene has been secured, Erbs said.<\/p>\n He added that MDA has \u201ca lot of experience with terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n \t \u201cIn Israel, things are happening daily which are out of the normal medical problems which every country and every city has,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd they produced, because of that experience, a lot of [standard operating procedures] about mass casualty incidents and how to handle them.\u201d<\/p>\n Two veteran MDA medics from Israel, Raphael Herbst and Aryeh Myers, taught the course, repeatedly referring to lessons learned during terror attacks in Israel, including the October 2023 Hamas invasion.<\/p>\n The course was another recognition that terrorism has become a constant threat to American Jews. Terror attacks have repeatedly targeted<\/a> Jews in recent years in the US and other parts of the Diaspora, including mass shootings<\/a>, improvised explosive blasts<\/a>, firebombings<\/a>, stabbings<\/a> and ramming attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Antisemitic attacks last year murdered 20 people<\/a>, making it the deadliest year for Diaspora Jewry in more than three decades.<\/p>\n \t American Jews have stepped up their security through an array of measures, often learning from Israeli experience and from Jewish security personnel in Europe, where terror threats have been an issue for longer. Some CSS staffers are from Israel, and the group coordinates with Jewish security outfits in Europe.<\/p>\n The US Jewish security effort began in earnest after the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh killed 11. That was followed by deadly attacks in New Jersey<\/a> and north of New York City<\/a>. The push for security escalated again after the October 2023 Hamas attack.<\/p>\n A communal response<\/p>\n One of the guards at last week\u2019s course, a banker from New York, had been volunteering with CSS for 10 years, but felt that his lack of medical training was a gap.<\/p>\n \u201cHaving that is going to be immensely important in responding if an event ever happens. Saving lives,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cEverybody gets that it\u2019s scary, it\u2019s disorganized, so you should be the one to come in and help organize it with whatever skills you have.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt sucks that we have to be doing this. But people who come to shul, they should feel confident that there are those of us that will step up when needed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s course differed from most first aid courses, which focus on an individual\u2019s response, in that its goal was to \u201cteach the community how to work as a community, not as individuals,\u201d Herbst said.<\/p>\n Herbst described how, as a young medic during the Second Intifada, he froze in shock when he entered a bus hit by a suicide bomber to find a disembodied hand hanging off the vehicle. A veteran medic shepherded him through the episode, he said.<\/p>\n The class also watched video of Druze Israelis linking arms to clear a street for ambulances after a Hezbollah rocket struck a soccer field in 2024, killing 12 youths<\/a>, in an example of a spontaneous, coordinated communal response that likely helped save lives.<\/p>\n \t \u201cThis isn\u2019t a first aid course. You\u2019re not going to learn how to do CPR,\u201d Myers said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be learning how to deal with a multi-casualty or a mass casualty situation with the bare minimum of pairs of hands and a lot, a lot of people who need help.\u201d<\/p>\n The volunteer group leaned older and Orthodox and included an accountant, a talent agent and a corporate lawyer, as well as members with medical experience such as doctors, paramedics and nurses, who offered insight from their specialties and helped coach other volunteers.<\/p>\n At one point, Myers asked the group why tourniquets should be applied only two inches above a wound, not higher on the limb.<\/p>\n \u201cToo much muscle to compress,\u201d one of the volunteers said.<\/p>\n \u201cUnnecessary tissue damage,\u201d another added.<\/p>\n The course relied on MDA\u2019s \u201cFirst Seven Minutes<\/a>\u201d protocol, developed to respond to mass casualty incidents. The guards learned to handle the \u201cbalagan\u201d \u2014 chaos \u2014 at the scene of the attack by stopping critical bleeds, communicating with dispatchers, triaging victims and identifying dangers.<\/p>\n Tourniquets, triage, friendly fire and family<\/p>\n Most of the immediate deaths at mass casualty incidents are caused by blood loss, so stopping bleeds was a critical priority, the instructors said.<\/p>\n The MDA medics taught the guards that during a mass casualty incident, applying direct pressure to an injury, such as holding a shirt on a wound, had disadvantages, because it requires constant pressure from both hands, meaning the responder cannot treat others, or other injuries to the same victim.<\/p>\n A first responder can apply a tourniquet, though, \u201cturning off the tap\u201d of blood flow, then move on to other injuries, Myers said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I\u2019ve got 10 patients and there\u2019s one of me, I\u2019m not going to use me to put direct pressure on any wound. That\u2019s going to be a tourniquet,\u201d Myers said. \u201cShooting situations, things like that, you\u2019re not going to mess around with putting on direct pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the volunteers practiced applying tourniquets to each other\u2019s thighs and biceps, while others used a rubber leg with a gory, gaping wound showing broken bones protruding in its calf.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20260331_untitled_05458.jpg\")
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\n\t\tA Community Security Service patrol in Manhattan, March 2026. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-04-07-at-09.27.57-e1775543645765.jpeg\")
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\n\t\tDamage caused by an Iranian cluster bomb impact in central Israel, April 7, 2026. (Magen David Adom)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/20250522_untitled_03615.jpg\")
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\n\t\tMourners outside the White House after the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers, in Washington, DC, May 22, 2025. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20260813_untitled_06552.jpg\")
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\n\t\tAryeh Myers, of Magid David Adom, teaches a first response course to Community Security Service volunteers, in Westchester County, New York, August 13, 2026. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n
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