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These are bollards, part of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sophisticated security measures spent in the past decade or so, intended to protect the Jews who worship there from violent antisemitic attacks. Similar security efforts, and mass-shooter training, probably saved the lives of Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, and three of his congregants, who were attacked last week by an antisemitic terrorist at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas.

Back in St. Louis, Rabbi Daniel Bogard was watching the events in Texas unfold by livestream, thinking back to his own, similar training, and going through the security measures at Central Reform Congregation in his mind. Bogard set up the livestreaming process at Central Reform, and he has moments of trepidation where he fears a repeat of what he was watching in Colleyville.

“It’s part of being a rabbi now,� says Bogard, whose wife, Karen, is also a rabbi. “You go through these trainings of what to do if someone comes to kill you.�

This is the reality for Jewish congregations all over the country, increasingly since the in Pittsburgh in 2018, the Poway, California, shooting a year later, and the most recent hostage situation in Texas, which ended in the death of the hostage-taker. Part of the blame for this is a rise in antisemitism, something that Bogard ties, in part, to the rise of Trumpism, through which aggrieved white supremacists have been somehow emboldened in their racism and hate.

The Anti-Defamation League has tracked more than in the U.S. in the past two years. The combination of the rise in antisemitism and the unique availability of guns in the U.S. creates a challenge for Jewish congregations, Bogard says. He calls the situation a Second Amendment Jewish tax, creating a massive cost for security, in dollars and mission, at Jewish synagogues that don’t exist at most Christian churches, for instance.

“I speak in churches regularly and it never ceases to shock me when I go to open the door and it’s never locked,� Bogard says. “There are no bollards. There’s no cop. There’s no security. No locks. That isn’t true of any Jewish synagogue in the country anymore. There is nowhere that doesn’t keep its door locked all the time. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid.�

Just inside the front door of the Central Reform Congregation is a food pantry, where people from the community can come to get food, or sometimes step in from the cold. It’s an important part of the synagogue’s mission, to serve the community, and, yet, the front door is locked. Once inside the pantry, there is another set of doors locking out the rest of the building.

Every classroom has a deadbolt and another door that allows for escape. There are panic buttons placed throughout the synagogue. The congregation has applied for a $250,000 Homeland Security grant to turn its public facing windows into bullet-proof ones.

This is the Jewish reality, in Colleyville, in Pittsburgh, in St. Louis.

“There have always been people who believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories,� Bogard said. “When you can buy an AR-15 at the corner store, this is the cost that Americans have placed on us. I really believe that our First Amendment rights, to safely practice our faith, are being threatened by a Second Amendment gone wild.�

The man who entered Congregation Beth Israel presented himself as homeless, in need of food and warmth on a cold day. That sort of thing happens at Central Reform Congregation regularly, Bogard says, but the need for elaborate security measures gets in the way of the synagogue’s mission.

“It prevents us from doing the work that we’re supposed to do,� Bogard says. “That’s why we exist. We’re here to do the repairing of the brokenness in the world.�

The wicked combination of hate and guns makes that work harder. After the hostage-taking last week in Texas, the leadership at Central Reform Congregation decided to station a police officer at the preschool drop-off in the morning. It’s another expense in the ever increasing security ledger.

“Every dollar we spend on security,� Bogard says, “is a dollar we don’t spend on our mission.�