While walking home from
shul (synagogue) last night, I ran into a neighbour of mine. He told me that for the first time, he
davened (prayed) elsewhere. Why? Well, our shul has had security guards guarding the place every Shabbos for a while now and also inspect everyone's bags before letting them in. My neighbour, on principle, refuses to let them search his
talis bag. This time they refused to let him in. He was obviously quite upset saying it is an indignation that he, who has davened there for the past 18 years, should be refused entry into his own shul by some security guard.
So, that brings me to the basic question and that is, does a shul in Toronto need security guards every Shabbos? What risk are they guarding against?
A friend of mine commented on this a while ago and said that such security comes more from paranoia and not from valid security concerns. He also said that your basic security guard was someone who "couldn't cut it as a cop" and thus did not feel confident in their guarding abilities. (I'm sure that if a security guard is reading this he'll probably feel that that is an unfair generalization.)
The standard reason given as to why the shul has security guards is that the increased tension in the Middle East and Israel and a general rise in anti semitism warrants it.
But in Toronto, aside from a few incidents of anti semitic graffitti on houses, overturned tombstones, and broken windows in synagogues, everything has been relatively quiet. What would a security person be preventing exactly?
At the very least, the security guards should not have to check bags.What are they expecting someone to bring in? A bomb? A gun? What are the chances of that happening? What are the chances of someone dressing up as an Orthodox Jew, carry a talis bag, and hide a bomb in it in the city of Toronto? Not very likely, I'd say.
Update:
Miriam of
Bloghead weighs in on the issue of
security in shul.
