This Shavuot, as we celebrate the giving of the Torah at Sinai, the foundational moment of Jewish identity, Jewish law, and the Jewish covenant with Gd, the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples is proud to share that our community is not only observing this holiday in our local community, rather, we lived it in Washington D.C.
Earlier this week, six delegates representing Greater Naples traveled to our nation’s capitol to participate in the Jewish Federations of North America’s “Securing Our Communities” Advocacy Fly-In, one of the largest Jewish security advocacy gatherings in recent memory, bringing together more than 400 Jewish leaders from across the country. Leading the effort was our King David Society, the philanthropic cornerstone of our Federation’s men’s division, who helped organize and inspire our local delegation to make their voices heard at the highest levels of government.
The program was extraordinary. Our delegates began with a personalized tour of The Capitol on Monday morning, facilitated by Senator Ashley Moody’s office. Then on Monday evening the group joined a policy briefing and dinner program, before spending Tuesday morning and afternoon in back-to-back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill. We had the distinct privilege of hearing directly from Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter, and from Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, leaders on the front lines of protecting Jewish life and dignity around the world. National and Washington-based JFNA leadership joined to share the critical policy landscape shaping Jewish security in America today.
Our delegates then carried those conversations directly into the offices of our elected officials: representatives of Senator Ashley Moody, Senator Rick Scott, Congressman Byron Donalds (FL-19), and Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart (FL-25). The delegates came prepared with the story of our community and how the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples spent $264,000 on security in FY2026 alone, with our local Jewish organizations collectively investing more than $572,000 this year alone in guards and infrastructure, including how security now consumes an estimated 7.5% of our community’s annual budgets, dollars that would otherwise support education, health, and Jewish cultural programming.
The delegates advocated for three critical federal priorities: fully funding the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) at $1 billion in FY2027, a program of which only 43% of applicants were funded last year (estimated at a little over $300 million); cosponsoring the Jewish American Security Act, a comprehensive bipartisan bill to expand security resources, strengthen law enforcement collaboration, protect Jewish students, and require online platforms to address anti-Semitic content; and cosponsoring the SACRED Act, which would make it a federal offense to intimidate or block congregants from entering their houses of worship.
But what does any of this have to do with our upcoming holiday of Shavuot and the giving of the Ten Commandments you might ask? Everything.
At Sinai, Gd did not send a written memo. Gd did not issue a decree from a distance. The Torah tells us that the entire community of Israel, all of us, stood at the foot of the mountain together. “Vayachanu bamidbar” (“and they encamped in the wilderness” Exodus 19:2) as one and then stood as one to receive the law. Our sages teach that the Torah was given publicly, in the open, in a place that belonged to no single nation, so that every Jewish soul, past, present, and future, could claim it as their own. Presence mattered then. Showing up mattered.
In our Jewish tradition we do not interpret the first of the Ten Commandments as a prohibition. It is a declaration: “I am ADNAI your Gd.” Before Gd asks anything of us, Gd reminds us that we are a people who were enslaved and liberated, a people with a history, a memory, and a destiny. That identity does not sustain itself passively. It requires us to act, to speak, to show up, in our synagogues, in our communities, and yes, even in the halls of Congress.
In a moment when anti-Semitic incidents have spiked 360% since Oct. 7, 2023, when 77% of American Jews report feeling less safe in the United States, and when Jewish children in schools and on campuses are hiding their identity rather than celebrating it, silence is not an option. Our Torah commands us to be a community that does not simply survive, but one that advocates for the conditions that allow Jewish life to flourish with pride, not fear.
We live in a deeply partisan moment. Washington feels divided, gridlocked, and at times discouraging. But Jewish security is not, and must never be allowed to become, a partisan issue. The NSGP, the SACRED Act, and the Jewish American Security Act all have bipartisan support, because the protection of a religious community’s right to gather, worship, and thrive is a foundational American value that transcends party lines.
Our six delegates proved that Greater Naples has a seat at that table. We sat across from the staffs of our senators and congressmembers and spoke with credibility, with data, and with the moral authority of people who care deeply about the future of Jewish life here in Southwest Florida and across this great nation.
Now it is our turn to act. We urge every member of our community to contact the offices of Senator Moody, Senator Scott, Congressman Donalds, and Congressman Díaz-Balart and both thank them for having their staff meet with us and urge them to support the NSGP at $1 billion in FY2027, cosponsor the Jewish American Security Act, and cosponsor the SACRED Act. Make a phone call. Send an email. Tell them you are a constituent, you are a member of the Jewish community, and our safety matters.
We do this not only for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren, so that the next generation of Jewish young people in Greater Naples can wear a Star of David with pride, walk on their college campuses without fear, and stand at their own Sinai, free and unafraid, and proudly roar like the lion of Judah: “I know who I am. I know where I come from. And I am not going anywhere.” Because we are Stronger Together.
Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach!
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