Montgomery County takes action on faith-based hate crimes

Hate Crime continues to be on the rise across the country as war rages on in the Middle East. In Montgomery County, the government is taking action to combat it. 

The Montgomery County Council recently approved a $1.2 Million security Grant to nonprofit and faith-based organizations at high risk of experiencing hate crimes. The funds may be channeled into costs for security personnel, planning, training, or security cameras. 

More than 10,000 antisemitic incidents have been recorded in the U.S. since Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel, the highest number of incidents ever recorded in any single year period according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

This represents a 140% increase from the 3,698 incidents recorded in 2022. ADL said it tracked more incidents in 2023 than in the previous three years combined.

Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Executive, told The Wash that the grants’ goal is to ensure people feel secure when they gather for nonprofit and faith-based activities.

“Times have changed,” said Elrich, “and we’ve seen increasing hate crimes in Montgomery County; we wanted to make sure that people felt safe in their houses of worship.” 

“We are hoping that the grant helps these institutions protect themselves a little bit better. And it’s a lot of people that have asked for money so that you can tell there’s a lot of concern out there in the community,” said the County Executive. 

Beth Sholom of Potomac spokesperson Susy Altmann told The Wash the grant would help it do more in terms of security. 

Altmann said after the October 7 attack in Israel, the worship center has experienced a spike in hate crimes targeting them. 

“We have a lot of congregations that are of Jewish faith, and we’re trying to get policemen every Saturday for when we have our big gatherings. It would be amazing if we could have some help from the county,” she said. 

“We have volunteers. We have something called CSS, which is community security service, this grant will go a long way to help with more training,” said Altmann. 

Ramandeep Kaur of Guru Gobind Spiritual Center Rockville told The Wash that there have been attacks on their places of worship in the past because some Sikh members wear turbans.  

“There was a major shooting that happened in one of our Gurdwaras. Since after 9/11, we have become victims of hate crimes. People often mistake us for the other faith because of how we dress. The awareness that we have tried to raise through outreach in schools, outreach to other communities, we are progressing, but yes, these funds will help,” said Kaur. 

“We do not feel safe when the political environment is heated, or the narrative goes such that the minorities feel unsafe. So yes, we really want to take steps to increase the security of our place of worship and increase awareness,” she said. 

The Maryland State Police’s most recent hate crime data shows a major jump in the state. 

Anna Awimbo of Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake said security concerns for places of worship are at an all-time high. 

“It’s the same issue across the board. It’s the synagogues, its Islamic mosques, and some Christian communities as well. Everybody’s affected, and there’s a tradition in the faith community to be extremely open, have open gates, open doors, and they are no longer able to do that freely, and so that’s a major concern,” she said. 

“This grant will go a long way because it’s additional resources. It could go into security technology or just putting a gate on the property, which most congregations haven’t historically done, most of them don’t necessarily have a budget for that, and that’s where this funding will really help in a big way,” said Awimbo. 

To curb the hate crime that continues to go up, the Office of the Attorney General, Maryland, recently launched a portal https://nohomeforhate.md.gov/  to report hate crimes. 

At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Justice, which defines Hate Crime as a crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability, also has a portal to report such crimes https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes/report-a-hate-crime. 

According to FBI analysis, hate crime has been trending upward in the United States since it started its data collection in 1991.