The Russell Berrie Foundation had the opportunity to check in with Humera Khan, president of Muflehun, and Ari Gordon, director of Muslim-Jewish Relations with the American Jewish Committee. These two organizations, under the auspices of the Muslim Jewish Advisory Council, jointly run the Tackle! Upstander training series to prevent domestic terrorism and targeted violence.
The Foundation has supported the rollout of trainings throughout New Jersey to engage leaders in strengthening local prevention efforts and protecting their communities from threats fueled by extremism or bigotry. Our thanks go out to Humera and Ari for providing a deeper dive into the Tackle! model, how it works, and its impact on strengthening communities’ relationships, resilience, and safety.
Humera Khan
We have to invest in primary prevention. How do you create a stronger, healthier society so that violence, hate and domestic terrorism doesn’t take place? Which means recognizing there are vulnerabilities in our communities, but also that there are protective factors and enhancing those is good for all.
1. Why did you start the Tackle! Upstander trainings?
Humera – The intersection of our interests is on how to prevent domestic terrorism and violence. We see that domestic terrorism is on the rise and that affects both of our communities and many other minorities. What we’re trying to do is primary prevention – not just reacting once something has happened – and that requires every sector of society. Local government has a role to play, along with education, health, and many other sectors.
Most people don’t realize that they have a role and they don’t know how to access the role. The idea is to do capacity-building at the leadership level so that they can raise awareness at the local level with their constituents.
Ari – Muflehun and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) had already been working together in countering hate, and the synergy between the two organizations led us to want to do more together. At the same time, we saw a real need on the local level to build a network of ties and to develop on-the-ground expertise to address the threats that we had been collaborating on at the federal level through legislation.
Ari Gordon
It’s that everyone has a role to play — it’s the principal and teacher in the school, it’s the parent in the home, it’s the librarian who may have touchpoints with people who may become activated to this kind of violence.
2. Can you give an overview of the Tackle! Upstander trainings’ objective and approach?
Ari – The key is that we take a public health approach to preventing targeted violence and domestic terrorism…all kinds of attacks that are based on hate and hateful ideologies, whether that is antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, xenophobia or any other. It’s not a model where law enforcement officials are the only ones that need to be experts, and they’ll protect you in advance and act in response to incidents of violence. It’s that everyone has a role to play — it’s the principal and teacher in the school, it’s the parent in the home, it’s the librarian who may have touchpoints with people who may become activated to this kind of violence.
The Muflehun team has developed case studies of attacks or near attacks and all the steps into the perpetrator’s background that factor into them. It’s not just when they purchased a weapon and started to take action, but all the points of intervention that could’ve provided an off ramp to violence for that person, where they could’ve gotten help that they needed.
Humera – The Tackle! Curriculum is reviewed and approved by the Department of Homeland Security. People have not come across this information before and their role in prevention. To provide a sense of the curriculum, in the first part, attendees learn about the actual threats facing us. We look at the data to understand the mechanisms that are used to pull people towards hateful ideologies. The second module is understanding the risks and protective factors. The reality is that no one wakes up one day and decides they’re going to attack people. It’s a progression. This is about understanding how we actually mitigate risk factors and enhance protective patterns and increase our communities’ resilience. What are the frameworks and the supporting structures that are needed so we have safety nets in place? And finally, assuming our local governments have the safety nets in place, the third part addresses how an individual can be an upstander. If you see a community member in distress, how do you get help before it escalates to the point that the person commits an act of violence?
FBI numbers show that about three-quarters of cases had a bystander, someone who knew something. Did they take any action? In most cases, most people don’t know how.
You’re not only looking out for your own, you’re not only inward-facing but you’re outward-facing. You’re concerned about the vulnerability and security of other groups, and you can work together across lines of difference for the benefit not only of your own community but of the country and of our shared spaces as a whole.
3. Who typically takes part in the trainings, and what are they empowered to do after completing them?
Humera – Elected officials, mayors, state senators, police chiefs, sheriffs, superintendents of schools, principals, religious leaders, and so on. These are the people responsible for keeping us safe. But most of them don’t know the actual steps to take and the larger frameworks that connect all of us together. This is about raising that level of awareness so they can keep us safer.
We talk about local prevention frameworks, and the networks that need to be created to enable various sectors to start to have regular relationships. Because if you have a relationship before there is a crisis, you know how to engage and how to access resources once something flares up. In Hunterdon County, NJ, after our training, they took action to set up their own local frameworks where they have their various sectors engaging with each other. They identified the types of things they need to have in place to prevent violence.
At the individual level, the training influences people’s willingness to be an upstander. Through Tackle!, they know they have a network and a context of who they can access in law enforcement and other sectors as they need.
Ari – The public health model says there are thousands of little actions that every part of society can take that enable prevention…we’re talking about the attacks that hopefully we’ll never hear about because people have gone through training and engage at-risk individuals with caution and compassion. Since 2021, there have been dozens of municipalities that have gone through the trainings. Because they’re attached to AJC and Muflehun, our organizations can follow up. AJC can come in and do trainings on antisemitism and hate crimes with law enforcement and FBI offices. Or Muflehun can, for example, work with the City of Philadelphia on what it means to be identifying and responding to local threats.
Humera – In Philadelphia, based on the Tackle! training, attendees from the Human Relations Commission, which is responsible for tracking and preventing hate crimes, engaged Muflehun to do follow-up work. They held a symposium on stopping hate and violence but because of the training, the Human Relations Commission ended up inviting the various other agencies involved…mental and behavioral health, school district leaders, etc. We held a dedicated workshop with each of those agencies on how they all have a role to play in preventing hate. Now every one of those agencies has a dedicated liaison specifically tasked to this prevention network that Philadelphia now has.
4. What impact have the trainings had in the communities where they’ve been held?
Ari – These communities now are more closely networked and law enforcement is closer with community institutions with whom they need to partner to do prevention work and more effective response work. And the institutions themselves — religious leaders, civic leaders, educators — have greater insight into the nature of the threats and the ideologies behind them so that they can be more active in identifying them and intervening.
5. Why is it powerful to have a Jewish and Muslim organization leading this effort?
Ari – It’s demonstrating the civic responsibility that we want every religious, ethnic, racial and other identity group in America to demonstrate. Which is, you’re not only looking out for your own, you’re not only inward-facing but you’re outward-facing. You’re concerned about the vulnerability and security of other groups, and you can work together across lines of difference for the benefit not only of your own community but of the country and of our shared spaces as a whole.
There’s this perception in the minds of many Muslims and Jews as divided, and as necessarily in conflict because of tense issues taking place overseas, misunderstandings of each other rooted in antisemitism and Islamophobia, and sometimes there’s mutual suspicion of the other. Ultimately, we’re more vulnerable when we are divided. So, when we cross divides to work on something that is of tangible benefit to both communities, where we’re doing the actual work of making ourselves safer, we’re also modeling that partnership can overcome challenges. That is something that America needs more broadly now in this moment of polarization and division that really threatens all of us.
The one thing that you’ll hear both Jews that are concerned about antisemitism and Muslims who are concerned about Islamophobia saying is that this is not only the problem of my community…this is a systemic problem in the country. When we come together to address those problems, we’re more likely to find more effective, sustainable and comprehensive solutions.
Humera – We are often in a place where we’re activated after an incident, but that’s insufficient. We have to invest in primary prevention. How do you create a stronger, healthier society so that violence, hate and domestic terrorism doesn’t take place? Which means recognizing there are vulnerabilities in our communities, but also that there are protective factors and enhancing those is good for all. Yes, our communities disagree on certain things and yet this does not mean we cannot work together.
Ari – It’s been a great model to have AJC And Muflehun working together in delivering the trainings, and having the trainings hosted by the Muslim Jewish Advisory Council (MJAC). We are only able to do this because we found spaces to develop trust and rapport with each other. Doing this under the auspices of MJAC and MJAC-New Jersey has really been a way to advance the story that when Muslims and Jews work together, the whole country benefits.
To inquire further about the Tackle! Upstander trainings or to bring them to your community, contact Heather Chait, AJC Senior Coordinator for Interreligious & Intergroup Relations, at chaith@ajc.org.