Each year, as we get closer to the High Holy Days, our choir and musicians rehearse at a nearby church while our synagogue is being prepared for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Our music director has a key to the church entrance, and when we arrive for rehearsal, he unlocks the door, turns on the lights, and we get to work.
There’s nothing particularly memorable about this routine, which is probably why I have started paying so much attention to it.
I serve as a cantor at a Reform synagogue in suburban Cleveland, where getting into the building is a little more complicated. We have professional security guards, cameras, locked entrances, key fobs and emergency buttons. Our staff has regular security training, and keeping our synagogue safe requires a significant investment of money, staff time and attention. That is especially true around the High Holy Days, when thousands of congregants and guests will pass through our doors.
Our synagogue is also one of several local congregations participating in a new Jewish Federation of Cleveland pilot program that trains congregants to assist professional security officers. Volunteers are learning emergency preparedness, physical security, stop-the-bleed techniques, and how to recognize and report potential concerns. I am enormously grateful to all the people, professional and lay, who do this work and protect us.
