Montgomery County is providing an additional $500,000 to its Nonprofit Security Grant Program as concerns intensify due to violence in the Middle East and the recent attack on a Michigan synagogue.
Grants of up to $10,000 will be given to existing grant program recipients identified as a risk group impacted by the war in Iran, including the Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Zoroastrian, Baha’i and Arab Christian communities, according to a press release.
These grants are designed to help synagogues — and other Jewish and non-Jewish institutions — strengthen their security staffing over the next 90 days during a time of “heightened antisemitism and violence.” The county has already given nearly $1.2 million through its annual grant program earlier in 2026.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center documented a 34% increase in antisemitic incidents worldwide in the week following the start of the war with Iran. Nearly half of the 154 incidents monitored by the ARC were motivated by the Iran war, CAM reported.
The additional funding also comes after a 41-year-old man rammed his truck into a Michigan synagogue on March 12. “Just because it happened in Detroit doesn’t mean it won’t happen here,” Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Washington Jewish Week.
“This was an unusual situation, the way the threat has escalated, and we need to react quickly,” he added. “We need to immediately get armed people out there to defend the institutions.”
(Photo credit: wikicommons/betterDCregion)
The JCRC staff thanked Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich and County Council President Natali Fani-González for their leadership in recognizing the need for additional security funding.
“It really just shows the commitment of this county to the security of the Jewish community, among others,” Halber said.
Days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, Halber said he contacted Elrich to request a “surge in funding to Jewish institutions and other institutions at risk because of surging antisemitism or other forms of bigotry and hatred as a result of the Iran war.”
Then, after the Michigan synagogue attack, Halber asked Elrich to make the funding available, and the county executive granted $500,000.
He spoke to the importance of the trained security personnel who thwarted the attack in West Bloomfield, Michigan. All 106 children and all staff members safely exited the synagogue building, Rabbi Jennifer Kaluzny of Temple Israel told Jewish News Syndicate.
“Having someone there literally watching to make sure that nothing is going to go wrong is irreplaceable,” Halber told WTOP News.
Halber emphasized the large amount of funding that goes into synagogue security, which has increased in recent years, particularly in the wake of Oct. 7, 2023.
“The reality is that there are synagogues in the region that spend hundreds of thousands, up to millions a year to keep themselves secure,” Halber said. “It’s become a part of our budget.”
Since its start in 2019, Montgomery County’s grant program has allocated millions of dollars to hundreds of institutions to hire off-duty police officers and implement other security enhancements, according to the press release.
There are only two other instances the county has issued emergency security funds: once in response to Oct. 7, and the other time after a Maryland man sent threats to local synagogues and Jewish institutions across the Mid-Atlantic region between March 2024 and June 2025, Halber said.
He had previously requested $1 million from the federal government for FEMA’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program. Funding for the NSGP is currently tied up in a “political stalemate” over a U.S. Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, according to JNS.
Gaining funds locally is the way to go, Halber said.
“Local government has the ability to do everything quicker,” he said. “They know their communities; they know the resources available. They’re familiar with the community institutions.”
The community can then leverage that philanthropic support so that no one level of government becomes overburdened with these funds, according to Halber.
“It creates a partnership and it shows the commitment to protecting these different populations that are impacted by the war in the Middle East,” he said. “This should be on every JCRC director’s agenda, every Federation government affairs agenda to implement this.”
Halber said he has contacted Mayor Muriel Bowser about increased security funding in Washington, D.C., and is exploring possibilities with Maryland’s and Virginia’s state governments.
“I think the most important message from the success of the implementation of this program, is that this is something that can be reproduced around the country,” Halber said.
