But what may be the worst attack on a Jewish community in U.S. history is only the latest assault on religious institutions in recent years.
Houses of worship are often soft targets, with missions and traditions that emphasize peace and welcoming. Since 2012, there have been at least a dozen deadly shootings at houses of worship.
Security professionals say that religious groups in recent years have shown an increased interest in active shooter trainings as well as finding ways to make houses of worship more secure.
“Large businesses have moved quicker in that direction,” said Todd Clow, owner of Salvo Security Group, a business affiliated with an active shooter safety program at Texas State University. “Now I am seeing a larger push on the worship and religious side.”
The Anti-Defamation League said that Saturday’s slaughter was likely the deadliest single attack on the Jewish community in the history of the U.S.
“It is simply unconscionable for Jews to be targeted during worship on a Sabbath morning, and unthinkable that it would happen in the United States of America in this day and age,” said ADL Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt.
Last year, an Air Force veteran with a history of violence shot and killed 26 people at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, as they prayed on a Sunday morning. In 2015, a white supremacist killed nine African-American worshipers at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. In 2014, another white supremacist killed three people outside a Jewish community center in Kansas. In 2012, yet another opened fire at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, killing six.
Hate crimes in America’s 10 largest cities rose 12.5% in 2017, according to the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. It was the fourth year in a row that the number of hate crimes reported to the police increased and the highest total in over a decade, according to the center. African-Americans were the most frequent target followed by Jewish people.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation found that 54% of the 1,538 anti-religious hate crimes were motivated by anti-Jewish bias in 2016, the most recent federal data available. No other religious group faced as many hate crimes, according to the FBI.
In some cases, police notified Orthodox Jewish congregations who don’t use any form of electricity from Friday night to Saturday night. In Chicago, Rabbi Mendy Benhiyoun, the rabbi of the Orthodox Chabad of Lincoln Park, said he was eating his Sabbath lunch with his wife and two children around 4 p.m. when a police officer knocked on his door.
The officer told Rabbi Benhiyoun about Pittsburgh and that he wanted to make sure the rabbi knew to be on high alert.
Synagogues and religious schools nationwide stepped up their security in the aftermath of the Pittsburgh attack, with congregations in Milwaukee, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco, among others, sending notes to their communities Saturday night and Sunday morning detailing new protocols.
Police from Watertown, Mass., will be increasing patrols around JCDS, the Boston Jewish Community Day School, head of school Susie Tanchel said in an emailed message Saturday night.
Adas Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue in Washington, D.C., already has police and armed private security officers on-site. Now, the temple will add security personnel around the perimeter of the synagogue, and other measures, according to an emailed message circulated there last night.
Rabbis at Adas Israel said it was selected recently for a “significant” grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to enhance the synagogue’s “already robust security infrastructure.”
Some Jewish business owners are also wondering if they need to beef up security.
“We have a kosher restaurant—should we arm it?” asked Tammy Cohen, who owns Eighteen, a Glatt Kosher restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan, which her husband, Sidney, manages.
Though her restaurant doesn’t have a prominent sign indicating it is kosher—people know it through word-of-mouth—she has often thought of the need for additional security such as a guard. In the wake of Pittsburgh, “I am seriously thinking about it,” Ms. Cohen said.
Last year, a string of more than 100 bomb threats against Jewish community centers, schools and synagogues led many institutions to rethink their security protocols.
Don Aviv, chief operating officer at Interfor International, a private security firm that consults for many Jewish groups, said that last year during the bomb threats, there was a 70% increase in demand for security services among Jewish organizations in the New York metropolitan area. But the demand has fallen precipitously since then, he said.
One of the institutions that increased its security was the Bender JCC in Rockville, Md., which received multiple bomb threats last year. Some security measures have now been lifted, said Michael Feinstein, president of the JCC in Rockville, but he said professional security are present at many of the Jewish institutions in the area, including both the synagogues he attends.
“My heart goes out to the Pittsburgh community,” he said. “You want to have a synagogue that’s open to everyone, and now you feel like you can’t just be open and welcoming.”