By: Bob Meister

In an era defined by volatility, disinformation, and a historic surge in antisemitic activity, the announcement of an expanded national partnership between the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Community Security Service (CSS) represents far more than organizational synergy. It marks a watershed moment in the modernization of Jewish communal defense — a recalibration of the American Jewish security strategy that acknowledges the contours of a threat landscape evolving with unprecedented speed.

The collaboration, unveiled Thursday, strengthens the connective tissue between two institutions that have long operated in parallel: the ADL, the nation’s flagship anti-hate organization with unmatched intelligence assets, and CSS, the largest volunteer-based Jewish security network in the United States. Their deeper alignment will fuse high-level analytic capability with grassroots situational awareness, forming a sophisticated, multilayered defensive architecture that reflects both the gravity of current dangers and the communal resolve to confront them.

This partnership does not emerge in a vacuum. It is the culmination of a turbulent decade — punctuated by the shootings in Pittsburgh, Poway, Monsey, Jersey City, and too many near-misses — during which the American Jewish community has been forced to abandon any illusions of invulnerability. As The New York Post and other outlets have repeatedly documented, antisemitism is again becoming a feature of American public life, expressed not only in extremist violence but also in mainstream discourse, political rhetoric, and normalized hostility toward Jewish institutions.

Against that backdrop, the ADL–CSS partnership is not merely prudent. It is necessary.

The collaboration is anchored in a simple but profound premise: security is strongest when informed by both macro-level intelligence and micro-level vigilance.

For decades, ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) has served as the premier repository of data on extremist movements, hate groups, domestic terror trends, and online radicalization. Its analysts monitor and decode the digital and ideological ecosystems that give rise to antisemitic violence — from white supremacist accelerationists to far-left anti-Israel cells to Islamist networks operating across encrypted platforms.

Under the new partnership CSS volunteers nationwide will receive direct access to ADL threat briefings, analytic reports, and predictive assessments, ADL’s intelligence will inform training regimens, emergency protocols, synagogue security postures, and real-time risk mitigation, CSS’s grassroots footprint will give ADL on-the-ground validation, turning local observations into national trendlines. This bidirectional exchange transforms intelligence from an isolated dataset into a living, operational tool.

CSS, founded in 2007, has trained over 20,000 volunteers across the United States with programs designed to teach situational awareness, threat detection, and coordinated response skills — all while maintaining close alignment with law enforcement.

Its network protects 500+ Jewish institutions, including synagogues, schools, community centers, Hillels, and cultural organizations. CSS volunteers stand at entrances, monitor crowds, and serve as a vigilant presence at community gatherings — often the critical first observers of suspicious behavior.

Through the enhanced partnership a professional CSS liaison will be embedded inside ADL’s Center on Extremism, CSS will integrate ADL intelligence into real-time, hyper-local security decisions, ADL analysts will gain unprecedented insight into emerging patterns on the ground, from unusual activity at synagogues to campus disruptions. The resulting structure is not unlike a national fusion center tailored to the Jewish community.

This announcement builds upon the Joint Threat Intelligence Partnership (JTIP), a project launched between ADL’s extremism center and the Community Security Initiative of New York (CSI-NY). JTIP has already proved its worth as a national early-warning system, detecting and disrupting threats before they metastasize.

The ADL–CSS national partnership scales that model beyond the Greater New York region, extending the concept across dozens of states — from major urban centers to emerging Jewish populations in the South, Midwest, and Mountain West.

This is a transformation from regional coordination to national synchronization.

ADL Senior Vice President for Counter-Extremism and Intelligence Oren Segal articulated the ethos behind the initiative: “Protecting the Jewish community requires partnership, information sharing, and collective vigilance.”

His words echo the lessons of the past decade: no organization, no matter how sophisticated, can secure the American Jewish community alone. Security must be communal, grounded in both expertise and participation.

Richard Priem, CEO of CSS, emphasized the emotional and moral dimensions: “By combining CSS’s grassroots security network with ADL’s intelligence capabilities, we are creating a stronger, smarter, and more coordinated approach to community protection.”

It is a reminder that American Jewish resilience is not merely technical. It is deeply cultural.

The need for this partnership can be understood only in the context of the current danger. According to ADL tracking, the year following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 massacre saw the highest levels of antisemitism ever recorded in U.S. history.

The threats have grown more sophisticated and more decentralized:

1. The rise of anti-Israel extremism as a proxy for antisemitism

The New York Post has chronicled how anti-Israel rhetoric has evolved from protest slogans into intimidation outside synagogues, violent disruptions at community events, and targeted harassment against Jewish individuals — regardless of their political views.

2. Online radicalization and algorithmically amplified hate

Digital platforms have become incubators of extremist ideology, enabling lone actors to mobilize rapidly and without detection.

3. Domestic extremist groups forming tactical alliances

White supremacists, far-left anti-Israel coalitions, and foreign-influenced Islamist networks increasingly borrow one another’s narratives, creating hybridized antisemitism that is harder to track and counter.

4. A collapse of civic norms around antisemitism

The New York Post has repeatedly noted the normalization of anti-Jewish hostility in political spaces, academia, union halls, and social movements — a cultural shift that destabilizes communal confidence.

In this environment, synagogue security is no longer simply about cameras or guards. It is about intelligence-led community defense — precisely the model the ADL–CSS alliance seeks to build.

Historically, Jewish security responses have gone through several stages such as passive reliance on goodwill and public institutions, physical security measures after major attacks, localized volunteer networks, law enforcement–guided planning and intelligence-informed defensive ecosystems.

The ADL–CSS partnership signifies the entrance into stage six with integrated, nationally coordinated, community-defense intelligence.

 

This model mirrors the approach used in Europe and Israel, where communal security organizations maintain continuous coordination with intelligence partners and operate on the assumption that threats are persistent rather than episodic.

For American Jews — long accustomed to feeling secure within the American social contract — this shift marks a cultural and psychological evolution.

To be effective, this partnership must do more than exchange information. It must shape a national ethos of empowerment by training more volunteers, especially in smaller or newer communities, expanding intelligence literacy among synagogue leadership and Jewish institutions, deepening coordination with local, state, and federal law enforcement, embedding threat awareness into Jewish education, from youth groups to university centers and ensuring equitable security resources across socioeconomic lines.

The mission is not merely to detect threats, but to cultivate a durable posture of preparedness that transcends geography, denomination, and politics.

The enhanced partnership between ADL and CSS represents a decisive acknowledgement of reality: the era of complacency is over.

This is a moment for American Jews — a community long defined by its contributions to American civic life — to assert a new form of communal agency. To refuse to be intimidated. To refuse isolation. To insist on safety, visibility, dignity, and continuity.

At its core, this partnership is not about fear.

It is about empowerment.

It is about responsibility.

It is about choosing collective resilience over collective vulnerability.

And above all, it is about ensuring that Jewish life in America remains not only protected, but thriving.

In that mission, the ADL and CSS have now taken a historic step — and the entire Jewish community, as well as its allies, will be safer for it.