The ‘Jew Tax’

Nearly a dozen years ago, an article provocatively titled, “End the ‘Jew Tax,’” appeared on The Huffington Post website.

In August 2014, Israel was at war in Gaza against Hamas. That conflict was responsible, the Anti-Defamation League adjudged, for a “dramatic surge” in anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activity in the United States.

“The poisonous impact is deeply personal for every Diaspora Jew. My family and many others pay what I’ve dubbed the ‘Jew Tax’; that is, the portion of our suburban Chicago synagogue dues that goes for surveillance cameras, alarms and a security guard on duty during services and when kids are in Hebrew school,” wrote Michael Millenson, a self-described “religiously serious” Jew (who also is an expert on health care economics).

Millenson revisited this theme in January 2015, when French Jews were being attacked.

“I wrote in August how some Jewish organizations have taken down identifying signs and how one Jewish day school protects its parking lot with thick steel gates designed to deter would-be car bombers. I lamented that the anti-Israel anti-semites who cannot put us in ghettos have slowly forced us to build our own walls. The problem has steadily grown,” he said.

Indeed, the problem has continued to grow — along with the cost of protecting the Jewish community.

The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) estimates that the Jewish American community spends $765 million annually on security, roughly 14 percent of the budget for “a typical Jewish organization.” That’s three-quarters of a billion dollars not spent on Jewish education, camps, and other programming.

I would suggest that the interior “walls” Jewish Americans construct to protect themselves in environments they deem hostile are part and parcel of the “Jew tax.”

For some, this means removing a mezuzah from the doorpost of their home, tucking a Magen David or Chai necklace inside a shirt, taking off a kippah when walking in public, or even adopting a different name when ordering at a coffee shop, to avoid any issue when a barista calls out a Hebrew or Israeli name.

For others, the anxiety is manifested by self-censorship, exercising restraint and avoiding potentially confrontational conversations that touch on Israel, Jewish life in America, or U.S. politics.

Yes, there are those who respond to anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment by more openly displaying their Jewish identity and by engaging on the same issues.

No judgment here; each must decide for themselves.

There are rigorously observant Jews whose garb makes them more easily identifiable. I recall what Rabbi Yossi New of Chabad of Georgia told a January 2020 community rally held as Jews were being attacked in Brooklyn and New Jersey: “I know I’m stating the obvious, but it’s not how Jewish you look that causes anti-semitism. The way one looks is merely the canary in the coal mine.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, which set off alarms about security nationwide.

In 2004, Congress created the Non Profit Security Grant (NPSG) program, which helps religious institutions and other non-profits considered to be at risk of terrorist or extremist attacks afford security upgrades.

The program — which grew from a proposal by JFNA three months after 9/11 — has distributed some $1.5 billion since its creation. Early on, Jewish organizations reaped an overwhelming majority of the funds. The Jewish Insider reported that in the 2024 cycle, 37 percent of the recipients were Jewish institutions.

No single event forced synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions to examine their security as much as the Oct. 27, 2018, massacre of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Security concerns intensified when Israel again went to war in Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 men, women, and children. Anti-Israel protests saw Jewish institutions and businesses vandalized, and Jews assaulted in such settings as college campuses, restaurants, and public streets.

Consider that in 2016 Congress allocated $20 million to the security grant program. By 2024, that figure had grown by more than ten-fold, to $274.5 million. Pending legislation could see that rise toward $400 million. Jewish groups would like to see $500 million allocated.

Over the past two decades, Jewish institutions have spent large sums on security. Some measures are meant to be obvious, such as the now ubiquitous police presence at Jewish events, fences, concrete barriers, and outdoor lighting. Less visible are stepped up staff security training, and investments in video monitoring, alarm systems and communications equipment.

Jewish groups in Georgia are advocating for the state legislature to create a fund modeled after the federal program.

In the weeks since the United States and Israel began airstrikes on Iran, Jewish voices have expressed concern that depending on the war’s duration, its impact on the price of gasoline and other goods, and particularly if U.S. casualties rise, Israel will be blamed and that, in turn, could endanger the security of the Jewish American community.

Returning to Millenson’s essay, the security fee component of congregation dues is one barometer of the “Jew tax.”

At my congregation, the ask in 2017 was $50.

Today it is $180.