Meet the Rabbi Who Offers Firearm Training to Rabbis and Congregants For Self-Defense

Ferlon Webster Jr. | November 1, 2018
DONATE
Font Size

After 11 people were killed by a gunman at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, there has been much talk of whether houses of worship should have armed guards.

“If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him," Trump said shortly after the shooting, immediately prompting backlash from his critics.

The thoughts of armed guards sounds like a plausible proposition, but this obviously didn’t sit well with some liberal politicians like Brian Schatz, who tweeted: 

“I don’t want to arm synagogues and churches and schools. I want to live in a society where nazism and white supremacy crawls back in a hole and we have universal background checks.“

But there are some out there who agree that to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again, you need to arm rabbis, spiritual leaders and those who attend worship services. Guess who else thinks so? A rabbi.

Rabbi Gary Moskowitz “offers gun training to synagogues, teaching rabbis and employees to use firearms with the idea of arming them inside the house of worship,” according to CBS 2 News. 

The rabbi is a former cop, who founded a group called the International  Security of Coalition of Clergy “which previously sought to arm Jews in synagogues out of fear jihadists would attack them,” according to the New York Post.

He believes arming members of the synagogue is better than hiring private security because congregants are more familiar with the worship services at their temple and can spot any suspicious activity before outside security could.

“I hope they never have to use it, but if you don’t have a gun, how are you going to fight back against someone shooting at you?” Moskowitz said.

Take a look at an interview the “gun-toting rabbi” did with CBS 2 News below:

 

donate