NBC News
It was a Zoom call for help.
Some 1,500 worried Jewish leaders dialed in Tuesday to ask Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to beef up security just three days after an 11-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue that ended when the gunman who had taken a rabbi and three others hostage was killed.
The virtual meeting was organized to "hear directly what the government is doing to prevent future attacks and what resources are available to make our shuls and other institutions more secure,” said Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, which co-hosted the call with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Garland and Mayorkas, both of whom are Jewish, were joined on the call that lasted more than an hour by FBI Director Christopher Wray and Paul Abbate, the deputy director of the FBI, a spokeswoman for the Orthodox Union said.
