Honesdale, PA – David Ortner adjusted his yarmulke, cocked his pistol and took aim – something he wishes a civilian had done to defend Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue three days ago when Robert Bowers walked in and shot 11 people dead.
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“When this happens, you get a wake-up call,” said Ortner, a 28-year-old owner of an optician shop in Monsey, New York.
Ortner was one of nine Jewish men who attended a one-day course on Tuesday at the privately owned Cherev Gidon Israeli Tactical Defense Academy near Scranton, Pennsylvania, a class that was scheduled on Sunday in response to the Pittsburgh synagogue attack.
He was there to learn how to use a gun to protect himself and his community and prevent a repeat of Saturday’s massacre, the deadliest targeting Jewish people in U.S. history.
“The fact is, we’re at war,” said Yonatan Stern, a veteran officer of the Israeli Defense Force and director of the academy, told his class. “We want every Jew in America armed.”
In the six years since Stern started the academy, demand for firearms training had never been higher than after Saturday’s attack. Hundreds of interested students contacted Stern in the last 72 hours. All but three or four were Jewish.
The spike in demand follows President Donald Trump’s statement that the shooting might have been prevented if the synagogue had employed an armed guard.
But many Jews have resisted the idea that having guns in synagogues is the best way to prevent such attacks.
Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of the Kansas Interfaith Action, an advocacy organization, said on Tuesday that he did not believe Trump’s call for more armed guards could prevent attacks on places of worship.
“What kind of country we’re going to be if every house of worship has to have an armed guard?” Rieber said. “I think having less access to that kind of weaponry is going to be much more effective in the long run than having a single armed guard.”
According to Stern, an armed guard at a synagogue is a useful deterrent but not a replacement for armed civilians, since a shooter could kill the armed guard before entering and killing congregants.
“To wait for law enforcement to arrive simply is not the answer,” Stern said.
Some of the students attending the course were card-carrying National Rifle Association members. Some had never fired a gun before. Two worked in schools and wanted to defend Jewish children. Many of them intended to bring guns to their synagogues on the next Sabbath for protection.
“Everybody has to find a way to react, this is my way,” said Zev Guttman, who said he was scared of guns until Saturday’s shooting convinced him he had to be armed.
Tuesday’s course, held in a log cabin on an outdoor shooting range in rural Honesdale, about 300 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, consisted of active-shooter response drills using handguns and rifles. Students practiced drawing concealed weapons, loading and firing AR-15 rifles at bulls-eye targets.
Stern said that it “touches my heart” to see his students in training because he knows they will return to their synagogues as a first line of defense.
All of you Rambos:
Ask your local police chief, not to mention your Rav, what he thinks of civilians carrying concealed firearms in a shul.
In New Jersey the only people allowed to carry concealed firearms are off-duty law enforcement officers and authorized retired law enforcement officers…and even then, semi-annual range qualifications are required. and the particular firearm must be on an approved list.
Europe has protected its Shuls’ with trained officers and private guards (carrying sub-machine guns) for years. For some strange reason, there is still a reluctance to do that here. If chas v’shalom, there was another Shul massacre in the USA, there would still be Jews who would be against armed guards; go figure that out! A shanda.
The other day, there was another fatal school shooting, in a high school in North Carolina. If passengers can be screened for weapons before boarding a commercial airliner, why can’t all students be screened for guns and knives, before entering any public school?
Disgraceful zionists methods ר”ל
As Rabbi Meir Kahane HY”D often said: “every Jew, a twenty-two”
To #7 -You are a misguided fool, as anti-semitism has existed in the USA, long before Trump was even born. During the period leading up to World War Two, and even during that war, because of anti-semitism, the State Department, would not allow Jews to come to the USA, thus dooming them to the Nazis. Even Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor of the Dutch colony of New York, in the 1600’s, did not want any Jews to live in NY. During the Civil War, General Grant issued an order, prohibiting Jewish merchants to operate in certain areas of the South; however, President Lincoln, rescinded that order. Leo Frank, a Jewish merchant was lynched by southern anti-semites in Atlanta, in 1911. There have been countless Jews killed in NYC, over the years. I remember a Chassidic Rabbi, who was murdered in Williamsburgh in 1962, and another Chassidic murdered on a subway platform in 1986. In 1959, there were swastika incidents against Shuls in the NYC area. During the NYC school teacher’s strike of 1968, there was a lot of Black anti-semitism. What about the Crown Heights Pogrom of 1991, when Yankel Rosenbaum was killed? What about Ari Halberstam, who was shot dead on the Brooklyn Bridge, by an Arab?
OK I agree. There are a lot of Anti-Semites in the USA. So Lets stick together in Big Sanctuary Cities like NY,Chicago,Boston,La and others where the Democrats are in Power and make sure we are voting Democrats. The last thing we need as you mentioned “Black Antisemitism” or “Arabs” (There are millions of them) having them own legal machine guns like in the Republican Cities.
To #10 - Have you forgotten that nearly 200 Jews were killed in the twin towers on 9/11/01, as well as a number of other on the other two flights which hit the Pentagon, and crashed in Shanksville, PA?
A one-day course to learn what infantry soldiers train for close to eight months to perfect. Gilbert and Sullivan!