NEW YORK – Rotem Hason had never wanted her husband to buy a gun. An Israeli living in Florida for the last eight years, she was concerned about gun accidents, even though her husband, Daniel, had served in the IDF infantry and knows how to use weapons. “The way I grew up in Israel, only security people have guns,” said Rotem, 31.
But after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel followed by antisemitic demonstrations and violence in the United States, she could no longer make that argument. “I am still against guns, but after what happened in the suburbs of Los Angeles [when a man broke into the home of an Israeli couple with three kids, saying, ‘I’m going to kill you because you are Jewish’], that day, I said to my husband, ‘I’m done.’”
So Daniel, 29, went to the gun store in Boca Raton last Friday, “And it was 90 percent Israelis and Jews,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “After all the antisemitism in the world, we feel safe in Florida but not privately. I want to protect myself and my family, and after all that’s happened, there is no other option. The only option is to protect yourself first.”
Antisemitism in the US rises, so does Jewish gun purchase
The FBI warned this week of “historic levels” of antisemitism in the US. “The Jewish community is uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum,” said FBI director Christopher Wray.
With a World Zionist Organization report citing a 500% increase in antisemitic incidents, Jews in America want to know how to protect themselves.
For many, the answer is something they never thought they would consider: Buying a gun.
An assistant district attorney in New York City for the past 18 years, “Deborah” (who preferred not to give her real name, for safety reasons) had never considered buying a gun, even when many in her largely-Orthodox Long Island, New York, neighborhood did. A single mom who considers herself a “moderate,” Deborah, 50, is now worried about her two teen children. Her county recently issued a warning not to open the door to Halloween trick-or-treaters. “You don’t know who could come to your door to beat people up just because they’re Jewish,” she said. “I want to know I’m protected.”
As a DA, she said, “I’ve seen a lot of bad things, but nothing has been an impetus for me to get a gun until now.
“This is an awakening,” she said, adding that her grandmother died recently. “She was a Holocaust survivor, and I’m glad she died before she could see this. It’s crazy how this is happening.”
New Jersey mom Erica (who did not give her last name) never dreamed she would buy a gun. “It didn’t even cross my mind,” she said, noting that the Jewish and non-Jewish residents of her community have always gotten along well. “We’re a peaceful people and a peaceful community.”
But she was shaken after seeing recent violence at a city council meeting in nearby Englewood, New Jersey, a few miles northeast of Manhattan. Some 600 people protested a resolution passed in support of Israel; six were arrested. “There were a lot of pro-Palestinian militants coming in from other towns and motioning with their hands to cut off heads – it was very threatening,” she said.
Erica went this week to apply for a gun license, but local police told her it might take time. “There’s a huge uptick in license applications,” they told her.
Still, she will wait for it. “You never know when someone can just show up at your door, and Israel on October 7 proved that. With all the security that Israel’s supposed to have, I’m certainly more at risk now that all the antisemites are coming out of hiding…and they’re out for blood.”
Erica is stunned by the vitriol against Jews. “I was friends with people who posted anti-Zionist and antisemitic things on Facebook… I thought these people were my friends,” she said. “You don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what could happen. The hate is very loud, and it’s very violent. You just don’t know what you’re going to encounter.”
For some Jews in America – especially Israelis – the call for arms is less about antisemitism and more about the insecurity and shock at how Israel failed to prevent and respond to the Hamas attack.
“Black Saturday really traumatized us,” said Nir, a tech worker living in central New Jersey. “I immediately started looking at getting a gun. What happened in Israel opened my eyes. You can’t count on the authorities to be there for you. If it happened in Gaza and Israelis couldn’t protect themselves, I wouldn’t expect the police to protect me in time.”
Nir describes himself as “quite left wing” but more of a “common sense” gun-law advocate. He applied for both a “possess on premises” and a “concealed carry” license. “Every single one of my Jewish and Israeli friends are on that path,” he said. “They already got the permits and only then started talking about it.”
Although Nir served in the army, he handled a rifle during his service, not a pistol. “We do bring experience handling guns – how to point them, how to handle them,” but not how to use a pistol,” he said. “We don’t get that training in the army.” It will take him a few weeks to get his license.
Asked if he’s worried about how quickly he can get a gun, he replied, “Guns always worry me in this country.”
AND THEY should worry Americans, said Rabbi David Lerner, senior rabbi at Temple Emunah in Lexington, Massachusetts, who advocates for preventing rampant gun violence that has gone “out of control” in the United States. “Now Jews can see how easy it is to get a gun, how poor our background check system is in our country,” Lerner said, noting that he understands the rush now to get a gun.
“It’s a terrifying time to be a Jew in the world right now, and I understand why Jews want to take additional security measures to help them feel safer, so I understand the desire for people to go and get guns,” he said.
But in his opinion, this is not a good solution. “As someone who has learned how to shoot a gun, it’s a very serious commitment to take on that responsibility,” he explained, cautioning anyone bringing a gun into their home to read up on gun accidents in the home and suicide by gun. “If you have a gun in your house, you dramatically increase your risk that you or your family members will be wounded or killed by that gun – either by accident, suicide, or domestic violence,” he said.
Indeed, a 2014 review in the Annals of Internal Medicine concluded that having a firearm in the home, even when it’s properly stored, doubles the risk of homicide and triples the risk of suicide.”
Lerner believes that all Jewish institutions should increase security, and only well-trained staff should be using weapons. “If every Jew is going to take their own security into their own hands without working with police and the civil authorities and Jewish safety organizations, that might not be the best way to go,” he said.
Security officials agree.
“We have enough mass shootings in America, we don’t need more,” said Joel Leyden, a PR crisis communication specialist in New York who serves as a reserve IDF officer and senior adviser to the Foreign Ministry.
“Never have I ever advocated for civilians to secure weapons,” he said. But since the Hamas attack, he has changed his mind. “I contacted all the rabbis I know, and I suggested they obtain a firearm and firearm training.”
Under the “most serious threat they’ve been under since the Holocaust,” Jews must do two things, he said. “You do not hide: you wear your Star of David proudly, you do not show fear,” he said. Second, Jews should make sure their synagogues, schools, and Jewish facilities have an abundance of trained, visible security. “I’m talking about police, paid security, and volunteers.”
DEMAND FOR security is up, said Richard Priem, COO and deputy national director of Community Security Service, a nonprofit security organization that trains volunteers and provides security for the Jewish community. With 3,500 active volunteers, they have trained an additional 7,000 over the years.
Training includes how to secure a building, access control, secure perimeters, enact hostile surveillance, provide emergency response, and work with law enforcement. Since the October 7 attacks, there has been a “massive uptick” in requests for security – as much as they normally receive throughout an entire year.
Although the threat level is worrisome, Priem is heartened by one thing: the number of people who want to help. In one South Florida synagogue alone, 40 people volunteered. “We’re seeing a lot of people in the community appalled by what happened, They’re stepping up because we’re not going to allow the antisemitism to stop our way of life.”
However, not everyone who is worried about safety and self defense is buying a gun. For some, their longstanding opposition to owning a firearm runs too deep. But they may consider other weapons. “I saw the video of these girls pulling down posters and cursing out the woman filming it,” said a father from Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “I won’t get a gun, but I was thinking of getting a switchblade when I take my son to school, just in case. Things can get bad really bad, really quick.”
Just as gun classes are filling up, so are self-defense classes. According to Krav Maga Experts CEO Tsahi Shemesh, the demand since the attacks has been huge. “We are booked morning to night,” he said of his two studios – one on the Upper West Side; the other in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Most of the new students are Jews and Israelis. A month ago, he was teaching people who were “traumatized from riding the subway,” he said, talking about the “regular crazy of New York,” but now, “the world doesn’t make sense at all.”
The 41-year-old Israeli started learning Krav Maga – a practical self-defense instinct response – when he was six years old and has been teaching in New York for more than a decade. He wants to people to learn self-defense and not to be afraid.
“Being afraid is exactly what the world wants us to feel; to feel worried, to feel unsafe. We should be doing the opposite,” he said. “I am afraid, but I’m more afraid not to wear my identity with pride.”
He understands that Jews want to carry guns or other forms of self-protection – which, he stresses, must come with training. “Don’t use it when you’re angry. Use it when you must.”
Self-defense is essential, he adds. “It’s important that we walk tall and walk strong and not be afraid of who we are. We stood up for Blacks, for Asians, for LGBTQ and anyone who needed us. No one will do anything for us. So now it’s time to stand up for our own.”•