Two men were shot this morning at a synagogue in LA just before Shacharit (morning services) at 6:30 AM. The police are calling it a hate crime.
This is exactly what I fear most in terms of Jewish community vulnerability and this is exactly why I am advocating defensive firearms training for synagogue attendees.
I have been concerned about attacks like this for a few years now. In the past year, we've seen an attempt to blow up a synagogue in the Bronx; a gunman at the Holocaust Museum in Washington; swastikas on a synagogue in Edison, NJ; a 19-year-old Jewish man beaten up in Edison, NJ; "Kill Jews" notes in Brooklyn; and now a shooting at a synagogue in LA -- at 6:30 on a weekday morning when the shooter had to wake up early and plan. There are many things that I would like to be wrong about, and the spread of this sort of attack is high on the list.
I also note that this shooting was in California -- which has even stricter "gun control" laws than NY and NJ, two of the strictest states in the country. This is not a problem that will be solved with more laws, and the police cannot protect our synagogues and schools from those who hate us. We have no one on whom to rely but Our Father in Heaven -- and His message has always been that if we want His protection, then we have to put in the effort to protect ourselves.
The Jews at synagogue that morning are fortunate that the gunman left. A more determined terrorist, chas v'shalom (G-d forbid), could easily have murdered many people before the police arrived.
