Retired longtime Centerville Police Officer John Davis will also provide security assessments/emergency plans for any local Jewish organizations at their request

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Jewish Federation Security Director John Davis remembers the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education being built in Centerville. When the Federation facility opened in 2002, Davis had already served 10 years as a Centerville Police officer.

“I had worked security details and kept an eye out, and knew the people who were here,” he says of the complex, which houses the Federation and its agencies, programs and services.

A decade later, in 2012, Davis took over the department’s crime prevention/public education work as its community relations officer. That’s when he became the Federation’s direct point of contact for security assessments and trainings — for 11 years — until his retirement from the Centerville Police in November 2023.

The Federation hired Davis as its security director on a part-time basis the year after. Now, thanks to funding from Jewish Federations of North America’s LiveSecure initiative, Davis’ role was expanded to full time on Aug. 25.

“One of the most important things as a security director is that relationship with law enforcement,” Davis says. “We want them to know who we are, where we are, know that we support them wholeheartedly, because we want them to support us. Heaven forbid something was to ever happen, I want them to know this building, and getting them in here to know the lay of the land so they can be familiar with it and have a plan in mind before they get here is huge.

“When something’s going on, I know the right person to call, and that comes from 35 years of law enforcement in Montgomery County. I know all of them. And I can speak specifically to Centerville — all its agencies know the importance of the security factor for the Jewish community.”

Until last year, the Federation’s security was handled by its operations director, Roger Apple. When Apple retired, Federation CEO Cathy Gardner called Davis, then retired from the Centerville Police for a year; he was employed with a local hospital’s police force.

“We had an amazing relationship with John,” Gardner says. “I called him and said, ‘I’m trying to fill this position and would like to find someone like you.’ We made an arrangement where he could work part time for us, 10 to 20 hours per week.”

Davis, 56, says he was happy to help. “It was humbling to think they were going to put that trust in me,” he says. “I understand the magnitude of the position I have, and the trust people are putting in me.”

Gardner soon realized the Federation’s security needs couldn’t be handled part time.

“Especially with the area we cover, which is the Jewish congregations across the Dayton area, Hillel Academy Jewish day school, and our organization. We applied for and were able to secure JFNA’s LiveSecure grant for the full-time position starting in September.”

LiveSecure is JFNA’s $130 million campaign to ensure the safety and security of Jewish communities across North America.

The three-year LiveSecure grant funds Davis’ full-time salary for the first year. It provides half of the salary funding for the second and third years.

“We have created a task force made up of all local Jewish organizations and synagogues to talk about how we handle funding down the road, how we support this as a community,” Gardner says. “Because it’s a given that after the first year, we’ll need other sources of income.”

The Federation has already received LiveSecure funding to hire police officers and security for programs and events.

Davis describes the Federation’s full-time security director position as unfortunate but necessary.

“It’s a scary world out there for everyone,” he says. “Not just the Jewish community. There are so many extreme views. And antisemitism is off the charts right now. All those extremist hate groups have one common enemy — and that’s the Jewish people. It’s dumbfounding to me that they all tie back to that.”

In August, the FBI released a report that hate crimes against Jews in the United States reached an all-time high in 2024, accounting for 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes. The report also noted that hate crimes against Jews accounted for over 17% of all reported hate crimes in the United States in 2024, a 16% rise from 1,998 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 to 2,321 in 2024.

More than half of the incidents were related to vandalism, with intimidation the second-largest category. About 200 were assaults of varying degrees, and 260 of the total incidents took place in synagogues.

According to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, Ohio’s reported total was 233, a slight drop from 237 in 2023, but still much higher than the 61 reported incidents in 2022, the year before the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacre and the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

Davis is the Federation’s point person to work with Secure Community Network, the safety and security organization of the Jewish community in North America. SCN is the Jewish community’s official liaison with federal law enforcement; it coordinates closely with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners on safety and security matters related to the Jewish community.

Top priorities
Davis says right away he’ll work on sharpening Federation-wide emergency plans for all locations where it presents programming, and for local synagogues and Jewish organizations that request it.

“A lot of the Federation’s security measures are my doing and will continue. We’re never done with that. Threat environments are always changing. Just when you think you’ve got everything covered, they throw you a curve. You regroup and go at it again.”

He notes that emergency operation plans will vary among Jewish organizations.

“They’ve all got their own personality. But we need to have those good plans in place. Because that’s what we’re going to build on. Some of the places have them now. I can certainly be the resource and guide them and try to get them as systemized as we can.”

Davis also serves as the Jewish community’s resource for threat, vulnerability, and risk assessments.

“All the government security grants that we’ve applied for and received in the past require a security assessment, not just of a physical area, but of the threats in the area,” Gardner says. “Jewish organizations, Federations, JCCs all over the country are experiencing an increase in security personnel at institutions and events. John will be in charge of assessing what’s needed and finding the appropriate security personnel for our organization. And for those who need help, we’re able to help as well. He’ll be responsible for a large number of trainings that we need to go through, everything from active shooter trainings to situational awareness — trainings he’s conducted for our Jewish community regularly for years.”

Davis says he’s glad Gardner and the Federation board found the way to expand his Federation security work to full time.

“And I’m going to do the best I can for you. One of the best relationships that came out of my career with Centerville was the one I have right here.”

To read the complete September 2025 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.