The Security and Crisis Management Center (SACC) of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) has received a European Commission grant of approximately € 3 million to help protect houses of worship in Europe.
This became possible thanks to the EJC’s partnership with three recognized organizations from the Christian, Muslim and Buddhist communities: the Conference of European Churches, Faith Matters and the European Buddhist Union. As a result of this partnership, the Safer and Stronger Communities in Europe (SASCE) project was created.
The SASCE project is based on a multi-pronged approach to significantly enhance security in and around places of worship, and within and between Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish communities. The grant for the project was provided by the Internal Security Fund to support the European Commission’s Police (ISF-P).
For the first time, representatives of the four religious communities will work together on a common security project, which will be fully funded by the European Commission.
“Solidarity and cooperation are now vital because an attack on one community is an attack on all communities. As we saw in the case of the attack on the Galle synagogue on October 9, 2019, as soon as the criminal realized that he would not be able to kill the Jews, he tried to kill Muslims in a nearby restaurant, ”said EJC President Vyacheslav Moshe Kantor.