{"id":768055,"date":"2026-05-02T11:27:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/768055\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T11:27:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T11:27:30","slug":"eyes-and-ears-of-the-jewish-community-nycs-shomrim-watch-groups-take-up-counter-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/768055\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Eyes and ears of the Jewish community’: NYC’s Shomrim watch groups take up counter-terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The Jewish community security coordinator, standing in a wash of colored light from the synagogue\u2019s stained glass windows, asked the Orthodox patrol members seated in the pews about potential terrorist targets in New York City.<\/p>\n

The attendees suggested synagogues, the subway system, Yankee Stadium and Wall Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cYankee Stadium. Why is that a good target?\u201d the instructor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of people. The economy,\u201d one of the patrol members said.<\/p>\n

The Monday session was part of a push to extend counter-terrorism training to New York City\u2019s Shomrim neighborhood patrol groups, opening another layer of Jewish community protection amid a surge in terror threats<\/a> against Diaspora Jews.<\/p>\n

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The training marks a paradigm shift for the Shomrim, who tend to focus on street crime, not terror threats. The move is significant because the Shomrim represent one of the largest Jewish security forces in the city and are a regular presence on the streets of neighborhoods with large Jewish populations.<\/p>\n

The Shomrim are not being repurposed, but will continue their normal duties, with a layer of counter-terror training on top of their focus on crime.<\/p>\n

The Community Security Initiative (CSI), a group that coordinates security in the New York region, ran the session for Shomrim patrols from around the city. CSI and Shomrim have collaborated in the past, but the session marked their first joint counter-terrorism training.<\/p>\n

The groups are part of an interlocking network of Jewish security outfits in the US covering intelligence, training, on-the-ground protection, grant applications, self-defense classes and cybersecurity. The organizations collaborate with each other and with law enforcement. Monday\u2019s training brought the Shomrim, which operate within local Orthodox communities, further into that wider network.<\/p>\n

The event, held in the sanctuary of a Jewish center in Midwood, Brooklyn, brought in around 150 members of Shomrim patrol units from areas including Flatbush, Williamsburg, Crown Heights, south Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens. Each neighborhood\u2019s patrol operates independently, although there is some coordination between the different areas.<\/p>\n

CSI is planning further Shomrim counter-terror training sessions in other areas of the city, said Mitch Silber, the head of CSI and the former director of the NYPD\u2019s intelligence analysis unit. CSI is a joint initiative by the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMitch Silber, CEO of the Community Security Initiative, leads a training session for Shomrim, in Brooklyn, New York City, April 27, 2026. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

Shomrim, Hebrew for \u201cguards\u201d or \u201cwatchers,\u201d patrol Orthodox and Hasidic neighborhoods for incidents such as crime and lost persons, in coordination with local police, but have not previously focused on counter-terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u201cShomrim was created to fight local crime \u2014 burglaries, car break-ins and stuff like that, assaults and robberies, and now there is a new dimension,\u201d said Mendy Hershkop of the Crown Heights Shomrim. \u201cWe are starting to be used as a counter-terrorism tool as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new program complements\u00a0street patrols<\/a> launched this year by the Community Security Service, a group that trains volunteer guards to protect synagogues and Jewish events. Those patrols, with support and funding from CSI and the UJA-Federation of New York, are active in Manhattan and the Bronx, areas with smaller Orthodox populations where Shomrim are less active.<\/p>\n

The counter-terrorism training for Shomrim is meant to cover other areas of the city, in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, where the watch groups are based, for more comprehensive coverage to prevent attacks in the city.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tCommunity Security Service members taking a break during a patrol in Manhattan, March 2026. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

The program is partly a response to the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani due to his plans to scale back policing. Mamdani has proposed measures, including limiting police overtime and nixing the NYPD\u2019s Strategic Response Group, a unit that responds to protests and has come under criticism from Mamdani\u2019s leftist base. Last week, Mamdani vetoed legislation for handling protests near schools, drawing an outcry<\/a> from Jewish groups.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMitch Silber, CEO of the Community Security Initiative. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s more likely to see suspicious activity?\u201d Silber said of Shomrim. \u201cThey\u2019re sensors that are walking the streets of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jews in New York City are targeted in hate crimes more than all other groups combined<\/a>, and there have been several recent, thwarted attempts at terror attacks against Jews in the city, including a neo-Nazi who plotted to poison Jewish children<\/a> and a Pakistani national arrested in Canada who was planning a terror attack against New York Jews<\/a> on the anniversary of October 7.<\/p>\n

The US Jewish community has invested heavily in security since a spate of deadly terror attacks killed 15 Jews in 2018 and 2019. The Jewish Federations of North America estimates that US Jewish organizations spend around $765 million annually on security, around 14% of the typical institution\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

The attendees at Monday\u2019s event were Orthodox or Hasidic, many wearing black windbreakers with their neighborhood\u2019s name on the back and walkie-talkies on their hips, chatting in English and Yiddish.<\/p>\n

The CSI instructors, former NYPD personnel, introduced the organization, listing some of its successes in preventing attacks, including a 2022 incident that saw two men plotting to \u201cshoot up a synagogue\u201d<\/a> and a man from Utah last year who had threatened a synagogue and was arrested<\/a> while entering New York City.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tMembers of the Shomrim Safety Patrol in Brooklyn in 2020. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

The team mapped out a \u201cconcentric circles\u201d theory of preventing terror threats, from intelligence detection to hardening targets and the immediate response to an attack. The goal is to stop an attack as far out as possible, for example, by detecting threats on social media that can be relayed to law enforcement and personnel on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cCSI is really good and robust at the intelligence, at the intel levels. They have their analysts at their desks and they\u2019re monitoring the web,\u201d Hershkop said. \u201cThe Shomrim patrols in their local places, which we all work together, are getting the physical calls from the people in the community when there\u2019s a suspicious person, a suspicious car, something doesn\u2019t belong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put our two capabilities together. We\u2019re boots on the ground and we are now learning about situational awareness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The threats come from four \u201cvectors,\u201d the instructors said \u2014 Iran, the Islamic State, homegrown violent extremists, and racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tNew York police at the lighting of the world\u2019s largest menorah, hosted by Chabad, in New York City, December 14, 2025. (Luke Tress\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

The instructors walked the Shomrim through the typical cycle of a terror attack, from selecting a target to pre-attack surveillance and execution. The instructors used the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as an example, showing a video report about preparations for the attack and pointing out where it could have been prevented.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we get further into the plan, it\u2019s going to be harder and harder to catch,\u201d the instructor said, urging the Shomrim to practice keeping an eye out for anything out of place, such as someone wearing a heavy jacket in warm weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys are the eyes and ears of the Jewish community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CSI staffers related the lesson to familiar terms, comparing the practice of \u201clooking for exceptions\u201d while studying the Gemara text to picking out suspicious activity on the street, or spotting car thieves scoping out vehicles \u2014 a more common problem for Shomrim \u2014 to potential attackers surveilling a target.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes for a much more professional, much more robust, a much more effective security detail and we keep the community safer,\u201d Hershkop said. \u201cWhat happens all over the world, especially in Iran and Israel and all, has a direct impact here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 The Jewish community security coordinator, standing in a wash of colored light from the synagogue\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":768056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,315059,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-768055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-shomrim","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116504747497343739","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}