JEWISH YOUTH LEARN TO SHOOT

by JDO National Director Mordechai Levy

After September 11, the horrible attempted massacre of Jewish children in Los Angeles, and shootings of Jews in Chicago all by neo-nazis, there has been debate about the need to "get security" for synagogues and Jewish institutions. One recent author in the Forward even titled his well written piece "If Jews were armed" and advocated Jews being armed with guns as a deterent.

But even the best of the writers have missed "historical precedent" which a knowledgeable Jewish Militant will always be sure to cite. The actions of Jewish resisting forcefuly against their oppressors is many, but the story of one brave Jewish Militant leader founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization Zev Jabotinsky needs to be told, and retold, so that no Jewish group and no Jews will make the mistakes of the past happen again.

The year was 1905, and Jabotinsky had been speaking all across Russia trying to organize self-defense units like the one that had been put together in Odessa. It was launched after the Kishinev Pogrom. Jabotinsky spent day and night trying to arm Russian Jews just in case of a repeat of the horrible pogrom were to occur. His men actually saved Jews in a number of places, but many of the Jewish Establishment rejected his call for armed self-defense. Never was any Zionist leader condemned as loudly as he was, but never did the Jewish youth, teens, and college age students embrace a cause as the first modern day Jewish self-defense force. Jabotinsky after his men protected Jews became a household name, and many other Jewish groups imitated what his outfit had so bravely done.

Following this Jaobtinsky spread his message of armed self-defense for Jews around the world. His slogan "Jewish Youth Learn to Shoot!" was even the title of an article he wrote in the Yiddish press in the late 1920's a few short years before the coming storms of the Nazis. Jabotinsky set up special training camps all across Europe to teach young Jews to shoot.

As the Nazis were rising to power, reform Rabbi Leo Baeck misleadingly told German Jews "the Nazis like dark coulds will pass." Baeck, and many other leaders of the German Jewish establishment, urged German Jews to ignore Jabotinsky and his warnings of doom and his call for Jews to arm with guns. A few years later most of those Jews who laughed the loudest at Jabotinsky's prophetic warnings would end up the chimney stacks of Auschwitz. Many looked back wishing they would have heeded Jabotinsky's warning and acquired as much proficency in firearms as many of those unfortuante Jews had in the Greek classics. In many speeches I have asked Jews "if German Jews would have had guns before the Holocaust how many more Jews would be alive today?"

The fact is neo-nazis today and yesterday's nazis are cowards that are very good at shooting Jewish children. Now, if they had to face highly disciplined well trained legally armed Jews don't you think that the pejorative "tables" and guns would have been turned? Who would they have been turned on? The neo-nazis who think think the entire Jewish community is an easy mark and every Jew a potential victim. We must learn from the mistakes of the past or we are doomed to repeat them. We must tell any Jewish Establishment leader that dares oppose this program that the blood of the children shot in the JCC is on their heads for not having security teams of trained Jews. We must also remind them that it was their predecessors 60 years ago that opposed Jabotinsky's plan to arm and train Jews before the Holocaust. We will repeat Jabotinsky's most famous quote on the right way to fight anti-semites until it's in their heads, and they act on it. "It's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need it and not have it!" This is what Jabotinsky taught then We can implement it now. It is the surest way to have safety in our synagogues, and in our homes