Photos: European Rabbis Learn Self-Defense

Hundreds of Rabbis received basic training in first aid and self-defense at a conference organized by the Rabbinical Centre of Europe and the European Jewish Association. The annual conference, which was this year held in Prague, Czech Republic, brought together community leaders from across the European continent, with participants given basic training in self-defense and first aid following a recent spate of terror attacks across the EU.

At the conference, participants were presented with scenarios of possible anti-Semitic terror attacks on Jewish institutions, to instruct them in how to administer aid to victims of terror attacks whilst awaiting the arrival of emergency services. The Rabbis practiced basic self-defense activities provided by security personnel as well as basic training in first aid for victims of terrorist activity.

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, General Director of the European Jewish Association, who initiated the conference, stated that: “Unfortunately, the vast majority of European Jewish institutions are not provided with sufficient security by their governments. This is why we have decided to provide Rabbis and Jewish community leaders across the continent with basic knowledge and tools in order for them to be able to provide initial first aid and self-defense during a terror attack.”

Quoting a renowned teaching from ‘Pirkei Avot’, the Jewish ‘Book of Ethics’, he concluded: “If I am not for myself, who is for me?”

The decision to add the training to the itinerary of the conference in the immediate aftermath of this month’s terror attack on the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen, which had only been under police patrol since an earlier terror attack elsewhere in the city that same day, and was designed to enable community leaders to better protect their members in case of emergency.

Speaking after the Danish attacks, Rabbi Margolin emphasized that “unfortunately, the Danish government, like other governments across the continent, has not yet implemented the need to secure all Jewish institutions 24/7”. “It is only because of the earlier shooting that took place in the Copenhagen cafe that police sent several officers to the synagogue, and they were able to return fire and chase the shooter,” he added. “But the fact is that prior to the earlier incident, there were no police in the synagogue, and the unarmed security guard could have not prevented the terrorist from entering the synagogue and causing even more deaths,” he concluded.

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13 Comments

  • Locked and Loaded Lubavitcher

    And where pray tell was the comprehensive, tactical firearms training…….. As history has always shown, the only thing that is going to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. It’s that simple.

  • Shlomo HaLevi

    The only thing to stop bad guys is Hashem…isn’t that the “hidden message ” of Purim?

    • Locked and Loaded Lubavitcher

      Not withstanding the fact that nothing in this world happens without Hashem’s divine design and intervention, with your logic I assume that you are under the impression that the 75,810 “Soynei Yisrael” who were annihilated in the story of Purim, as listed in the final chapter of the Meggilah (which you draw into the narrative) were most certainly beaten to death with “Nerf” baseball bats! No?
      The aversion of the Frum community at large to a get involved with things that actually have the ability to take care of the “Derech Ha’tevah” side of ensuring our own safety, as opposed to putting our reliance on Non – Jewish security entities is mind boggling!!!!
      I might be wrong, but looking through the chronicles of history my impression is that if the European Jews in the 1930’s had a firm command of the tactical use of firearms, as opposed to dismissing them as “dangerous” and “not for the intelligent of society”, I think that the holocaust would have turned out considerably different.

  • Chaim

    Your both (actually half) right!

    It’s all in the hands of Hashem, but Hashem expects us to do all possible within the laws of nature…..

    • Parent

      That’s what they said when they couldn’t make up their mind between Baal and God. They conceived of incredibly sophisticated theoretically appealing solutions to the problem of absolute trust in God.

      You need to pick sides, not compromise.

      Personally, I don’t have much confidence in the laws of Nature. And certainly not in the self defence tentzel played by eltereh yidden as a segula to ward off the evil spirit of metal shrapnel.

      I believe that there’s not a blade of grass that can flinch without God’s direct consent. Our illusion of an independent sense of self, and it’s resulting sense of freedom to decide is nothing but a cultural belief we’ve learned from an early age. It helps us insignificant particles of automobile exhaust vapor to feel useful in an orchestra so vast.

      The laws of nature and it’s study are as useless as the hydrodynamics of toilet waste-water, not even worthy of a flush.

      God runs the movie, not the natural laws of the Department of Sanitation.

  • Camp all Year

    Is this a halacha skit? something doesn’t look right when bearded elderly scholars begin taking strange classes of strange bodily positioning more appropriate for private physical therapy. They look innocent, but I hope nobody gets hurt.

    Let them study their books, and let the security personnel deal with the security. What a balagan.

  • FIGHT

    it begins with self defence, progresses to self importance, and ends with self destruction domestic violence.

    This is not the way of the Baal Shem Tov.

  • Shlomo HaLevi

    Chaim:

    It’s all in the hands of Hashem, but Hashem expects us to do all possible within the laws of nature…..

    Is that how Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem was stopped..because of the “laws of nature?”

  • with the old breed

    HEY, KRAV MAGA anyone….there is a mens only classes in BP, great work out good for your heart good for your soul…it also help you with your mental out look…hey it is a win win. so lets see who understands “the act is the important thing”.

    • Parent

      be careful. Its nice that you could defend yourself, or have a fist with enough force to kill someone. But if you were my child’s rebbe i’d be concerned.

  • Shlomo HaLevi

    Locked & Loaded…

    For the record, You said: I assume that you are under the impression that the 75,810 “Soynei Yisrael” who were annihilated in the story of Purim, as listed in the final chapter of the Meggilah (which you draw into the narrative) were most certainly beaten to death with “Nerf” baseball bats! No?

    My answer: NO…I was merely stating the obvious that no one so much as stubs a little finger unless decreed from Hashem. King David didn’t just sit and say Tehillim during battle….but he knew that he wouldn’t be successful unless he said Tehelim BEFORE picking up his sword

  • Shlomo HaLevi

    Locked:

    One last attempt…your logic says the holocaust could have been avoided simply by Jews having guns