Helping other religious groups in Britain stay safe - the CST's new ambitious initiative

“People say to me, ‘Why are you still doing it, Gerald?’ To me it’s more important today than ever before.”

Alongside the 62 group, Mr Ronson was also heavily involved in JACOB (The Jewish Aid Committee of Britain, set up in the 1960s) and then its successor, GRET (the Group Relations Education Trust), before founding the Community Security Trust in the 1990s. He is the chairman.

Now he is at the forefront of another highly ambitious security project. Only this time, it’s not simply about the safety of Britain’s Jews but about using our experience in the field of security to help other minority communities who feel increasingly unsafe.

For close to a quarter of a century, CST has been at the forefront of the efforts to protect Britain’s Jewish community.

At the same time it has, when asked, provided advice and support to other communities.

Some of that, such as its association with Tell MAMA, the anti-Muslim hate watchdog, is well known. But as David Delew, chief executive of CST, says, much of it has been “in a discreet way.

“We helped the Hindu community, designing the security before they built the Neasden Temple,” he says, citing one example.

“We’ve helped the Muslim community as well, when the far-right were causing them some problems in Bradford. In fact, the Home Office asked us to go in and help on that occasion, just to give some general security advice there. We’ve been doing a lot of these small individual projects.”

Now, however, the CST is bringing this side of its work more into the open — partly in response to the sharp increase in requests for help in the wake of attacks like the Christchurch massacre in March, where 51 Muslims at two mosques were murdered by a far-right gunman.

As Mr Delew describes it: “Everyone was knocking on our door. We were inundated with requests for assistance from other communities.

“And so the decision was taken at that point that it would be good for us to be able to reach out, help these other communities that were being targeted; work with them, share our knowledge with them, and help them to make sure that they had security in place.”

The figures are striking. Since the beginning of March, CST has received 111 requests to help other communities — including Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains — with their security. More than a third of such requests came via interfaith groups, although others came via the police, local government and even through a few mayors and MPs. The organisation has already delivered 31 talks to more than 1,000 people representing 520 different places of worship. It is already committed to another 28 talks and is in discussion about 14 more.

“Our approach is to work with local authorities, government, police — who are setting up conferences and meetings, with faith communities, whether they be multi-faith or specific faith group,” Mr Delew explains.

“We will come in as the expert in the room to work with them.”

The new initiative, which has the provisional name of the Community Security Programme, is not intended to set up versions of the CST for other communities but rather, “to give them the basic initial advice on how to put security in place”, rather similar to the advice which CST already provides to shuls around the country.

“We’re talking about communities that have got their doors wide open — they don’t close their doors, they don’t have that mindset of even having any perimeter access control.”

The organisation’s advice would in certain circumstances include physical security infrastructure advice as well. This means not only how a communal security group is set up, but advice over its building, the site and surrounding streets. That could be, for example, adding a fence, where CCTV it should be placed, door reinforcements — the basic advice that CST provides for shuls and schools as a matter of routine.

There could, of course, be issues with some groups refusing to work with CST because of its Judaism or Zionism — in which case they are clear that this may actually flush out some organisations and people.

David Delew, CST’s CEO, describes the organisation’s current efforts as “the initial stages of a massive project”, with the idea being “to start off slowly, and then see how much more we can do.”

The project itself was the brainchild of Mr Ronson. As Mr Delew puts it:

“Obviously we have the full support of the board [of CST] as well, but Gerald is the driving force behind this.”

Mr Ronson says: “The world’s moved on and we need to be much more sophisticated.

“And I believe, given the circumstances as they are in the United Kingdom, that we should be able to put our expertise in certain areas at the disposal of these minority communities, which are desperately in need of those services.

“These other communities are scared. And they don’t have the same leadership structure as we do in the Jewish community. So therefore they need, help, guidance — and that’s what this proposal which we’ve set forth will hopefully achieve.

“It’s not going to be a magic wand that we can protect all these communities with but they are intelligent people, we can help them to understand what they need to do to help make their communities more secure.”

He makes clear that CST will “not be charging” other communities for this service.

“This is not a business, it’s what we do.”

At the same time, however, CST’s leaders have stressed that the organisation’s prime aim will continue to be protecting the Jewish community.

The cost of the new project, estimated at £1 million, has been raised via private funding. Mr Delew adds that the intention is to attempt to raise additional funds to “a number of foundations that would be interested in this area of work.”

Mr Ronson believes a number of “wealthy people in the Muslim and Hindu communities… will be supportive.”

Mr Delew emphasises that “a key issue for us is to ensure we can do this work, help other communities — but not distract CST staff and leadership from our core mission of protecting our community. So the approach that we’ve taken is to build a separate, standalone team that works under my direction and the direction of our board, as such, but to keep it separate from the main organisation.”

Mr Ronson concurs.

“Our number one priority at CST is looking after our Jewish community… from left to right”, he said.

“Whether you’re Orthodox, liberal, reform or whatever you are — we don’t question that issue.”

He says that despite the current “political aggravation” he does not foresee “too many people running away” from Britain.

“I tell other people — ‘why do you want to leave?’

“[They say] ‘because I have a home in Israel’. Because they are — and I can understand it — concerned about what they read in the papers about antisemitism. And they feel insecure.

“But I think a very small proportion of those people would actually pack their bags. This isn’t the middle thirties in Nazi Germany. This antisemitism is intellectual antisemitism. But there are plenty of bad people on the left and right.

“My concern is, with Brexit and all this political aggravation that we are going through, we have to be on our toes because with what is going on you do not know where this could lead.”

He describes how CST has developed strong relationships with both the Metropolitan Police, as well as police forces in places with significant Jewish populations, such as Manchester.

“They ask us to do certain things, but because of the cutbacks they don’t have certain resources. But we work very closely with the authorities in terms of trust and in terms of the business that we’re in. I can’t go into detail, obviously.”

Have police cuts led to a growing reliance on the CST from the police?

“I don’t think it’s a growing reliance, but it has helped create a closer relationship.”

One of the things which sets CST apart is its funding. Occasionally, representatives of Jewish communities from other countries have been known to come to the UK, looking for security advice.

“When you talk to these people — and I meet some of them because they come to London and talk to me — they’re doing what they’re doing with pennies,” Mr Ronson says.

He is keen to prevent that happening in Britain.

“There are quite a lot of people in our community — wealthy people — who in my opinion do not give responsibly. I’ve got no embarrassment to say it.

“There are only around 2,500 people that give to us.”

The wealthy “need to open up their chequebooks a bit more”, while those who are not in a position to give money can register for CST training, “through our programmes in London, Manchester, and elsewhere, where we have proper training facilities, and be volunteers — so that’s their commitment, they give of their time.”

He fears British Jews can sometimes take CST for granted.

“We’re an insurance policy for this community.”

The government currently allocates £14 million a year for the protection of Jewish institutions and the CST raises around £8 million from the Jewish community.

“Eight million pounds I accept is a lot of money, but that’s what it costs, if you break it down to all the different things we’re involved in, the different people, what they do, the training they do”, Mr Ronson says.

“With CST, it’s not what you see, it’s what we do.”