If you're part of a group that others want to kill, or that you believe they want to kill, it only makes sense that you'd step up and arm yourself so that if they try, they'll have a bad time of it.
After all, if there's a reason to target you because of your identity, then why would you just trust that a law or two will make the threat go away with the laws against murder clearly haven't?
That's especially true for Jewish folks in this day and age. We've seen growing antisemitism ever since the October 7th attacks last year. Israel responded, and a lot of people got strangely bent out of shape about it and somehow blamed American Jews for it. We saw it all over college campuses last year, especially, with the antisemitic encampments at colleges like Columbia and UCLA, among others.
In Texas, though, it seems some Jewish teens have gotten the message loud and clear.
Jewish men often accessorize with yarmulkes; Texan men sometimes accessorize with guns. If a man is both Jewish and Texan, you might find him in synagogue with both, a scenario that creates a unique environment for Jewish Texan teenagers to learn and to develop thoughts about guns.
While Jews across America have the lowest gun ownership rate of all religious groups, some Jews in Texas approach the issue of guns differently.
“They all carry guns in their suit pockets,” Max Levin, 15, said of the men at his Orthodox synagogue in Dallas, Texas. He said that they carry “for safety,” which, to him, is needed in a post-Oct. 7 world of increasing antisemitism.
Many of the Jewish Texan teens JTA talked to appreciate their state’s gun culture in light of the aftermath of Oct. 7, the Hamas attacks in Israel that sparked the war in Gaza and led to an anti-Israel and often antisemitic backlash in the United States and elsewhere. It’s one out of many factors shaping their stances on guns. Local Jews also have vivid memories of the 2022 crisis at Congregation Beth Israel in nearby Colleyville, Texas, when a gunman took synagogue members hostage.
“My whole family never thought about owning a gun before Oct. 7,” said Evelyn Benloulou, 14, who moved to Canton, Texas from Los Angeles in 2021, then relocated to Dallas in 2023. Following the events of Oct. 7, her parents took gun training/safety courses and bought guns, which Benloulou said they never would have done in L.A. Benloulou attributes her family’s gun ownership (and her plan to someday own a gun) to a combination of the effects of Texas gun culture and rising antisemitism.
It makes perfect sense to me.
Look, the truth of the matter is that for centuries, people have looked at the Jewish people as a perfect patsy for whatever hate they could find in their hearts. A lot of that ended as the horrors of the Holocaust became known, but we also have a lot of people who don't think that really happened or that it wasn't really that bad, all to justify their hate.
Yet if you're part of a group that is hated, that will be hunted and killed by those who feel that hatred, why in the world would you just let it happen? Why would you just sit back and hope to be spared or that things don't go as bad as they possibly can?
A lot of Jewish folks have been doing that for over a year, even after so many people have made it clear that their real issue with the Nazis was that they didn't go far enough. They've stuck their heads in the sand and are hoping the goodness of people who have none will be enough to save them.
But these kids?
No, they've apparently got their heads screwed on straight, about this if nothing else.
