TIMES OF ISRAEL
Synagogues are now conducting active shooter drills during services
by Ben Sales
July 2, 2019

When the ushers locked the door to the sanctuary, and the congregants prepared to flee the synagogue in preparation for a mass shooting, Rabbi Neil Cooper made sure it all happened before they had to take the Torahs out of the ark. Ten minutes later the worshipers were back in the pews, doors unlocked, and getting ready to hear the weekly Torah portion. The first active shooter drill at this suburban Philadelphia synagogue was over. “It was not a high-energy, kind of catching people off-guard kind of thing,” Cooper said five days after the June 22 drill at his Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. READ MORE