The onset of the Jewish high holidays coincided with national grief marking 25 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. At sundown that same day, Jewish families across America gathered to welcome Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. 

Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, begins this Sunday. 

In our tradition, the high holidays are the season when the future is held in the balance, and this year the two observances arrived together.   

Our community remembers that morning the way every American does. We stood with the families of the victims, and in the years that followed we helped lead the advocacy that created the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP), helping houses of worship and community institutions of every faith protect their people.

It rests on a simple conviction: the first responsibility of government is to protect its people in their places of worship and community.   

Twenty-five years later, the need for that protection has grown beyond what any of us wished to imagine.    

In May 2025, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky........

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