Memphis Jewish Federation Vice-Chair of Security Craig Weiss, Regional Security Advisor Amanda Braswell, and Secure Community Network (SCN) National Training & Exercise Advisor Stuart Frisch are part of the team behind the SCN/Federation partnership working around the clock to keep the people and places of Jewish Memphis safe.
Jewish communities around the world let out a sigh of relief when the hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas ended with all hostages escaping with their lives. With an outcome that could have unfolded any number of ways based on any number of scenarios, a single factor can be credited with the happy ending. Their escape was the outcome of highly specialized training from Secure Community Network (SCN), the official homeland security initiative of the organized North American Jewish community and partner of Memphis Jewish Federation.
Through our first-of-its-kind partnership with SCN, the Memphis Jewish community is protected by an intricate and far-reaching web of law enforcement agencies and professionals, high-tech countermeasures, and the same standardized and specialized training that saved Jewish lives in Texas.
“Jewish Americans represent 2% of the population but incur 57.5% of the faith-based attacks,” said Amanda Braswell, Federation’s Regional Security Advisor, a collaborative position with SCN. “It was organic that the Jewish community was the first to organize a security initiative and was born from need, and now resources are available for your synagogue or your child’s school that aren’t available in other faith-based communities. They don’t have the same need.”
“Federation is the convener and strategic planner in Jewish Memphis. We’re the only organization that can bring everyone from every corner of Jewish Memphis together to address crucial concerns, like the safety of our community members,” said Craig Weiss, Federation’s Vice-Chair of Security. “SCN needs to be there for every agency, and assist every institution with security measures, and these factors make the two organizations perfect partners.”
Memphis Jewish Federation and SCN’s partnership was the first of its kind for Jewish communities in the United States and in fact the first of its kind for any faith-based community. Established in 2018 with the hiring of Stuart Frisch as the first Regional Security Director, the program has been providing vital services ever since, serving as a point of contact for all issues related to security, from monitoring, coordinating, and sharing information related to issues like public safety and terrorism to making regular visits to Jewish organizations to assess security needs. The training SCN provides and the role they serve as liaison between the community and law enforcement is invaluable.
“To lay out a list of security measures can be counterproductive to the goal of security. We also intentionally avoid security theater – things that are in place just for the sake of appearance,” said Braswell, who stepped into the Regional Security Director role after 20 plus years in local law enforcement when Frisch became SCN’s National Training & Exercise Advisor. “This means there is a fine line we walk in reassuring the community that they are being protected in all manners possible, without carelessly revealing our methods to threat actors.”
Two tactics that have proven to be highly effective and can be shared freely are leveraging personal and professional relationships with local, regional, and federal law enforcement and intelligence, and what Frisch calls “saturated and standardized” training, meaning as many members of the community as possible are trained in exactly the same way by experts in their field.
“It doesn’t help any community to be saturated if the training isn’t uniform and standardized to where everybody is trained not only at the same level but trained to do the same thing,” said Frisch. “Prior to SCN’s evolution into the national standard for training in the Jewish community, there were a lot of people seeking non-vetted training, which is actually more dangerous than not having any training. In the military world, we call it burning bad reps, meaning getting really good at doing the wrong thing.”
The SCN training model is built on two foundations; Situational Awareness Training and Counteracting Active Threat Training (CATT). First, you are trained to be observant of your surroundings, giving you vital reaction time. Then, you are taught the strategy of survival during an active threat.
“CATT is based on the strategy of run, hide, fight, in that order,” said Braswell. “Run if you can, hide if you can’t run, and as a last resort, be ready to fight. That’s exactly what the rabbi in Texas did when he threw the chair at the hostage-taker and yelled for the others to run. That was his last resort, and using a chair is absolutely a part of the training, in which we teach people to use what you have available when you need to act.”
Relationships with law enforcement, from those officially mapped between SCN and organizations like the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, and personal relationships between people like Braswell and Frisch and MPD officers and FBI agents, are also key to community security.
“As soon as news of the Texas situation broke, my local contacts with MPD and the FBI were proactive in their support, reaching out directly to offer their agency’s support,” said Braswell. “I’m so grateful for our local law enforcement partners.”
“That was all due to the relationships that I’ve established with them. All day, I was talking with the MPD, Homeland Security, the FBI, and with security professionals at our local synagogues, to make sure we were all on the same page and looking out for each other. I have these people’s personal phone numbers, and many are personal friends. That is from years and years as an established contact.”
On Tuesday, January 25 at 7:00, Federation is convening an online Community Security Briefing with SCN’s Jewish Security Operations Command Center, Braswell, and Frisch. Guests from the MPD, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security will also speak. Local security will be discussed, as well as several ways for community members to take action. Click here to register for the event.
“Seeing the news from Texas, I thought of everything that we’ve been preparing for and training for and updating our security about, and the thought went through my head that these are our brothers and sisters and it can happen anywhere,” said Weiss. “That’s the reason for the partnership, and the trainings, and everything else, it’s the reason we do all of it so carefully and deliberately. It is not, unfortunately, some remote, far-fetched idea, it is something we have to deal with in reality.”