(RNS1-JUNE08) Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport unrolls the Torah scrolls at the Chabad House near Syracuse University, which has applied for $61,876 in federal security grants to install blast-resistant windows, security cameras and other improvements.For use with RNS-SECURITY-GRANTS, transmitted June 8, 2009. Religion News Service photo by Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-Standard.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — In the past four years, the federal government has given $64 million in grants to nonprofit groups it considers at risk of attack from international terrorists.

The groups that won grants have not been threatened or attacked. In fact, federal auditors critical of the program said in 2006 that experts knew of no threats of foreign terrorism against any nonprofit.

The grant program was born after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when Congress feared al-Qaida would strike again. Yet eight years after the attacks, international terrorists have not attacked nonprofits in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security does not claim the taxpayer-funded security cameras and other improvements helped prevent violence, yet public money continues to flow to private religious organizations.

New York received more money from the Urban Areas Security Initiative Nonprofit Security Grant Program than any other state, and nearly 70 percent of the grants awarded to state nonprofits went to Jewish organizations, including synagogues, private schools and community organizations.

When the Department of Homeland Security spends another $15 million in September, two Jewish nonprofits in upstate New York hope to receive about $60,000 each: Temple Adath Yeshurun and Chabad-Lubavitch of Central New York.

“I wouldn’t say there’s an immediate danger,” Rabbi Yaakov Rapoport said of the Chabad House, which is located near Syracuse University. “But based on what just happened in New York … there would seem to be a need to ensure the safety of the people who come here.”

He was referring to the May 20 arrest of four men who are accused of plotting to plant bombs outside two synagogues in the Bronx. Gov. David Paterson recently said those two congregations would be awarded $25,000 each from the grant program.

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who appeared with Paterson at the news conference, said she’s requested $25 million more for the program because fewer than half of the applicants received money this year.

But the Bronx case, according to one security expert, is no endorsement for the spending.

The FBI prevented the Bronx bombings because an informant tipped off law enforcement authorities, said William Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University.

“I don’t think spending a lot of money to secure facilities is a good payoff,” he said. “Investments in good intelligence and police work and law enforcement information-sharing might be more valuable than hardening targets that are unlikely to be hit.”

New York’s Jewish nonprofits received most of the grants because they submitted more applications, said Amy Bonanno, a spokeswoman for New York’s Office of Homeland Security, which reviews the applications. Other potential targets of terrorism — abortion clinics, gay rights organizations, African-American groups or animal research clinics, for instance — did not apply, she said.

“You have to make the case that there’s an international terrorism risk or threat there,” she said.

In an audit of the program, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that none of the grant winners in 2005 claimed their facilities in the United States were threatened or attacked by terrorists.

“DHS officials stated that, according to federal law enforcement and the federal intelligence community, there were no known credible threats against nonprofit organizations,” the GAO wrote in 2006.

Some nonprofits received grants because they had been victims of vandalism, while others were deemed to be at risk because terrorists threatened or attacked an affiliated group in a foreign country.

A DHS spokeswoman declined to comment on the GAO’s criticisms.

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

The grant program was created by Congress in 2004 near the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Former President George W. Bush proposed the Department of Homeland Security receive $40 billion in 2005, including $1.4 billion in grants for urban areas most at risk from terrorists, but no funding for nonprofits.

Then-Sens. William Frist and Hillary Rodham Clinton, along with Sen. Arlen Specter, pushed for $50 million for nonprofits.

“The assistance is intended for basic security enhancements to protect American citizens from car bombs and other lethal terrorist attacks,” Specter told his colleagues at the time.

Initially, the House and Senate did not approve the money. But Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., then chairman of the appropriations subcommittee overseeing Homeland Security funding, added $25 million for nonprofits into the final budget bill.

Congress has authorized more money for nonprofits every year since, except for 2006.

The federal government has awarded nearly $15 million to 218 nonprofits in New York. Nearly all of that went to New York City area organizations. Fifty-one synagogues in New York won grants. Three churches received grants.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Rapoport’s Chabad House seeks $61,876 to install blast-resistant windows, security cameras and other improvements. The organization should get the money because last November terrorists killed six people, including a rabbi, at a Chabad House in Mumbai, India, Rapoport said.

No terrorists have threatened the facility in the 28 years he has been the rabbi, Rapoport said. He said he is not convinced security cameras or blast-resistant windows will stop a suicide bomber. But Rapoport said the federal government wastes more money on less-important issues.

Temple Adath Yeshurun wants $52,997 to install security lighting and cameras. It said it is at risk because a 74-year-old Georgia woman and her daughter disrupted services in 2007.

Judy Overby, who claims she receives visions from God, declared that day that a temple was going to be destroyed. She was convicted of disturbing a religious service and falsely reporting an incident.

Meanwhile, Syracuse-area nonprofits that have been actual victims of domestic terrorism have not received the grants. Weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Gobind Sadan, a Sikh temple, was burned to the ground by a group of Oswego County youths who mistakenly believed the temple supported Osama Bin Laden.

“We did not apply for any grant from the government as we do not know about anything regarding the grants,” said Gurbachan Singh, chairman at Gobind Sadan, which has since rebuilt.

(Mike McAndrew writes for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y.)