Jewish culture is not usually perceived as the most gun-oriented, but with anti-Semitic attacks reaching new heights, Jewish people are arming up.

According to this report from Agence France-Presse:

Los Angeles (AFP) -- Armed guards, safety assessments and now even a "Tactical Rabbi" to train volunteers on the use of weapons -- such is the reality today at synagogues in the United States facing mounting anti-Semitic attacks.

It is at a shooting range in the hills overlooking Los Angeles that a team of AFP reporters met recently with Raziel Cohen, dubbed the "Tactical Rabbi," who was sporting a 9mm pistol on his hip and carrying a semi-automatic rifle over his shoulder.

Cohen was trying to determine how well books can stop bullets. The idea is to transform a library at a synagogue or Jewish school into a shelter in the event of an active shooter situation.

"We're trying to bridge the gap between the time that the shooting begins and law enforcement arrives," he told AFP.

"The expression that goes on is that we carry guns because we can't carry police officers, which is not just a joke," added Cohen. "The reality is that there can't be police everywhere all the time."

Everything the tactical rabbi says makes sense.

And the measures being taken are clearly in response to the soaring rate of anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish people and institutions. 

According to AFP:

Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States remained at near-record high levels in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which recorded 1,879 incidents, the third-highest level since the 1970s.

The horror that occurred at the Poway synogogue just a few weeks ago signaled to many that having one person there with a gun could go a long way towards lessening a massacre, as that synogogue had. It also signaled that crazed haters, in the unlikeliest places, are out there. 

The AFP story does go on to quote people from the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles as stating they preferred preventative measures. I know them from my days in Los Angeles and think they are good people, so think it's fair to give them some credibility, too.

But it's unmistakeable that the current anti-Semitic climate, with high-profile Democrats such as Rep. Ilhan Omar espousing anti-Semitic views and even Congress unable to pass a simple resolution explicitly condemning anti-Semitism, a bridge has been crossed, and the Second Amendment is important, too. Arming up after nothing has stopped any other solution is becoming a reasonable response.

This is a sorry picture, and in no small part because there's such a failure of leadership from Democrats to make anti-Semitism unacceptable, with all the bad events going on. 

The Jews startled the world in 1948 by fighting for the creation of Israel. A good source for remembering how that went is in Leon Uris's Exodus. What we are seeing now is an echo of that valiant history.

Image credit: Thriftbooks screen shot