As the cost of security climbs alongside increased antisemitism, the Tepper Foundation — founded by Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper in 1996 — is granting $8.75 million to the Jewish Federations of North America to help foot the bill. 

Last year, the foundation awarded $9 million to JFNA to protect Jewish spaces and support interfaith and community outreach initiatives. This new grant will expand that support, helping over 100 individual federations across the country cover the cost of security personnel, specifically for early childhood programming, including daycare centers and PJ Library activities. 

The New Jersey-based foundation has historically funded areas including food and housing, climate resilience and pro-democracy and anti-hate initiatives. A month after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks in 2023, the Tepper Foundation launched its “Security Fund” to address Jewish communal security needs. With the new grant, the fund has in total allocated $23.1 million to support security in Jewish spaces. 

The Jewish Federations of North America and other Jewish institutions have spent recent months advocating for additional federal funding to offset skyrocketing costs of security. In a letter to the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, JFNA’s president and CEO, Eric Fingerhut, estimated that Jewish organizations pay some $765 million per year for security alone. 

Two deadly attacks on Jewish events over the past year, in Washington and Boulder, Colo., have raised the stakes when it comes to Jewish communal security. But a mass shooting and arson attack on a Michigan Mormon church this week — and a similar attack on a Catholic church in Minnesota in late August, have broadened that conversation, Shira Hutt, executive vice president of JFNA, told eJewishPhilanthropy. 

With this grant, JFNA also plans to focus on “proactive” interfaith outreach and community building. 

“Bridge building and relationship building is also key to creating strong civil societies and also to keeping our community safe as we address the rise in antisemitism,” Hutt told eJP. “We know all too well the pain and the fear associated with a community being attacked, and so we stand in solidarity with those communities in hard times, but really we want to be more proactively engaged in building strong relationships year-round, day in, day out.”

According to Randi Tepper, CEO of The Tepper Foundation, this grant seeks to reduce the squeeze felt by many Jewish communal institutions, as they struggle to balance preexisting programming with new demands in an increasingly volatile national landscape. 

“While most Jewish organizations have existing funds dedicated to security, many institutions have had to pull money from other budget lines to meet increased security needs,” Tepper said in a statement. “We want to ensure these organizations can not only provide security but continue their missions serving local families.”