“We can either live in a paranoid politically correct world frantically trying not to offend the Hitlers and Mohammeds, and blaming their victims when they kill, or we can be free men and women who have chosen to take the power to defend our rights into our own hands.

While a thousand organizations use the Holocaust as a platform for speeches about tolerance, Children Of Jewish Holocaust Survivors [Jews Can Shoot] is conducting firearms training… Freedom is not defended with empty idealism easily perverted into appeasement of evil, but with the force of arms.”

All too many of the other great tragedies of history - Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few - were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece... If a few hundred Jewish fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Silveira v. Lockyer, 2003

Habah l'hargecha hashkem l'hargo -- "If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first."

Day: December 24, 2024

Commentary

The Maccabees: The Jewish Freedom Fighters

by Doris Wise Montrose on December 24, 2024

“Yet, for all their shortcomings, the Maccabees leave us with an empowering message that resonates in all times and all places: Never cower in the face of tyranny. Do your part, trust in G‑d, and success is sure to come.” The Maccabees were a band of Jewish freedom fighters who freed Judea from the Syrian-Greek occupiers during the Second Temple period.

Commentary

Hanukkah and the Jewish fight for independence

by Doris Wise Montrose on December 24, 2024

“The eternal light of Jewish freedom was never extinguished. Today, it shines brightly in the Middle East’s only democracy, and its example continues to inspire people of diverse faiths.” Hanukkah celebrates the Jewish war for independence in the second century B.C. Although many gentiles know about dreidel games and menorahs, the history is unknown to

"All too many of the other great tragedies of history—Stalin’s atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few—were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. ... If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars." — Silveira v Lockyer, (9th Cir. 2003) (Kozinski, J. dissenting.)