At sundown on Friday, Sept.11, as America marks 25 years since the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, Jewish families across the country will welcome in Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year marking 5787.They will enter synagogues at the moment of peak annual attendance, walking past armed guards, security cameras, secured doors and bag checks.The convergence brings into focus how the Sept.
11 attacks transformed security in American synagogues and helped create the national infrastructure that now protects Jewish life.FOX NEWS MEDIA ANNOUNCES EXTENSIVE 9/11 ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE FROM GROUND ZERO, PENTAGON AND SHANKSVILLEAn NYPD Mobile Command Unit stands outside of Temple Emanu-El on 65th Street near Central Park in New York City, May 22, 2025.This is part of an increase in security at Jewish organizations nationwide after an Israeli couple was killed in Washington, D.C.
(Kevin C.Downs for Fox News Digital)When Rosh Hashanah began six days after the attacks in 2001, a security guard stationed outside a synagogue was still unusual.
Twenty-five years later, security is no longer an occasional precaution.It has become a permanent precondition of Jewish communal life."The confluence of events, the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and Rosh Hashanah, is really very meaningful to us," Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, told Fox News Digital.
"If you trace the evolution of the security situation for the Jewish community in North America, you see that 9/11 really was a major turning point."Before the attacks, Fingerhut said, synagogues may have relied on police to direct traffic during the High Holidays or installed basic alarm systems, but there was no widespread belief that Jewish communities needed protection from threats to their physical safety.Law enforcement respond to a call at Temple Israel synagogue, Thursday, March 12, 2026 in West Bloomfield Township, Mich.(Corey Williams/AP Photo)"That changed on 9/11," he said.
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