When security is the norm, even for our kids

I was driving past a local school the other day. As I sat idle, waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I watched a teacher walk through the playground.

A thought crossed my mind.

At a Jewish school, you’d never be able to see a teacher walk through the playground. You’d never see climbing equipment and swings, hopscotch markings or tennis courts. Because our children are surrounded by fences with metal criss-crossed in a diamond pattern so you can’t see through the gaps. Fences so high, with spikes on top, that people can’t climb over them.

They high-five and wave to armed security guards when they walk through those gates.

And nothing, I repeat, nothing has changed since I was a kid walking or driving into my school. The same school my children attend now.

I smiled and waved at armed guards just like they do.

I was surrounded by fencing, just like they are – although now the fencing is a tad higher and stronger.

I vividly remember the security guards laughing and winking at me, as I snuck through the gates 22 years ago, trying to avoid the teachers on duty who would give me a demerit for being late for prayers (if you’re a high school teacher from the late ’90s or early 2000s where I went to school – and you know who you are – look away).

When I first left university, I started my working career at a custom publishing company. My colleagues were shocked to find out that I went to “the school on the corner that’s surrounded by guards”.

But to me, it was normal.

It’s a sad state of affairs that nothing has changed in 30 years. For as long as I can remember, I had security guards stationed outside my school. Now, my little two-year-old is driven through those exact same gates that I would sneak through in 2003 and 2004, smiling and waving to even more security guards as the car rolls past.

But the question of whether we need this security has a clear answer.

I know my children are safe once they are behind those fences. But getting into the school, that’s where the fear is. So each morning, I say a little prayer. I hope they have a good day, play nicely with their friends, show and are shown kindness. I pray they smile through their learning.

But my prayers carry a little extra weight. Because I know for Jewish schools around the world, safety is not guaranteed.

And we saw that play out last week.

On March 12, an armed man crashed his truck into Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, where children were attending preschool, before dying of a self‑inflicted gunshot wound after exchanging fire with security officers. At the time of the attack, more than 100 children aged five and younger were inside the building. Michigan’s Governor said plainly what we all know: this was antisemitism. Plain and simple.

Then, just two days later, an explosion struck a Jewish school in Amsterdam’s Buitenveldert neighbourhood, the city’s modern Jewish quarter, in what Mayor Femke Halsema called a “targeted attack against the Jewish community.” She was unambiguous.

“A school must be a place where children can attend classes in complete safety.”

Indeed it must. But increasingly, it is not.

Across Australia, Jewish institutions now spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on security.

We fortress our schools, train our teachers, drill our children. And still, hatred finds us.

What shakes me most is not the attacks themselves, as horrifying as they are, but the normalisation.

Michigan State Senator Jeremy Moss put it starkly: the Jewish community has grown accustomed to “learning and praying in a fortress.”

My other colleagues at that first job were horrified that I had armed guards. But it didn’t faze me. And that’s when I realised it had been normalised for me.

While of course I knew that not every school had the same level of security that we did, fresh out of my university bubble it suddenly dawned on me that it was not, indeed, normal.

Kids at non-Jewish schools could simply walk into their schools, into the playgrounds. Even in school holidays they could head to the grass areas and enjoy a hit of cricket or a round of basketball. Their parents didn’t have to sign in with security. They didn’t need their bags checked.

Yet, to my children, it’s normal.

It’s normal that security accompanies them to the park. It’s normal that security comes to their excursions. And now, it’s normal to see police officers standing next to our security guards at drop off and pick up.

It’s normal.

And it’s not ok.

It’s not ok that my children know the names of the guards. That the guards know my face and my numberplate.

It’s not ok.

So now, alongside the prayers I say each morning at drop off, I add another prayer.

I pray that my grandchildren will not be high-fiving security guards on their way in. I pray that they won’t need lockdown drills alongside fire drills.

I pray that the fences will come down, and that I’ll be able to watch them at play.

Jessica Abelsohn is the arts and lifestyle editor at The AJN.