(Washington, DC) – The Secure Community Network (SCN), the official safety and security organization for the Jewish community in North America, hosted its annual Homeland Security Summit in Washington, DC, last week.

More than 70 security professionals attended the three-day event to explore various security topics impacting the North American Jewish community, including the current threat environment, cybersecurity risk and mitigation efforts, physical security best practices, and intelligence sharing, among others.

FBI Director Christopher Wray was the keynote speaker at the conference. He spoke to attendees about the FBI`s strategy to prevent hate crimes, the evolving domestic terrorism threat, and the importance of coordination and partnerships in security, highlighting the direct partnership between SCN`s Jewish Security Operations Command Center and the FBI's National Threat Operations Command Center.

"The FBI isn't tackling hate crime and domestic terrorism alone. We will continue to stand together with our partners, organizations like SCN, to confront hatred and violent extremism," said Director Wray.  “SCN`s Jewish Security Operations Command Center has partnered up with the FBI`s National Threat Operations Center to directly report incidents and threats. That kind of connection is reserved for very few, select, trusted partners.”

Attendees also heard from former Assistant FBI Director Kerry Sleeper, the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, U.S Department of Homeland Security, John Cohen, and Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States, Joshua Geltzer, who all spoke on a panel discussing the current threat landscape 20 years after 9/11.

Michael Masters, National Director and CEO of SCN, moderated the panel, and also presented on various security topics throughout the three-day conference. The topics ranged from information and intelligence sharing to funding security programs.

“This event is critical to improving security across Jewish organizations,” said Masters. “This Summit allowed everyone involved in protecting the Jewish community to come together and collaborate on a broad range of security issues. Coordination is an essential part of security, and this Summit provided that.”

Additionally, the Summit included panel discussions and roundtables with SCN community security directors discussing lessons learned and best practices in training, physical security, and cyber, and ended with a Veterans Day ceremony.

 

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The Secure Community Network (SCN), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, is the official homeland safety and security initiative of the organized Jewish community in North America. Founded in 2004, under the auspices of The Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, SCN serves as the central organization dedicated exclusively to the safety and security of the American Jewish community, working across 146 federations, 50 partner organizations, over 300 independent communities as well as with other partners in the public, private, non-profit and academic sectors. SCN is dedicated to ensuring that Jewish organizations, communities, as well as life and culture can not only exist safely and securely, but flourish.