Video of Guns Causes Unrest in Jewish Community

by Kristen Green – Times Dispatch

Asher Meza is not against Jews in Virginia legally arming themselves. He said that many Jews in Israel carry weapons for protection.

RICHMOND — While a rabbi prayed in a Richmond synagogue, a group of Orthodox Jews passed around an AK-47 before a ceremony celebrating the end of the Sabbath.

Asher Meza, a 32-year-old Orthodox Jew, made a video of himself showing guns to a group of young men at a private synagogue in his friend’s home and then posted the video on YouTube and Facebook.

The whole thing doesn’t sit well with the Richmond Jewish community.

“I wasn’t trying to make a statement, but a statement was made,” said Meza, a former Baptist preacher who converted to Judaism and studied to be a rabbi.

“I’m not advocating for everyone to walk around with an AK-47, but I walk around with a handgun on the Sabbath, and I think it would be better if most Jews did. It’s better to have the gun and not need it than need it and not have it, especially in a religious environment.”

But Tommy Baer, a Richmond attorney who was president of B’nai B’rith International, a Jewish service organization, called that statement “vigilante nonsense.” He said he viewed the video with “complete revulsion” and found it offensive.

“Weapons, especially … an automatic rifle, have no place in a synagogue,” Baer said.

The video was made the evening of the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who is Jewish, and the killing of six others. The alleged gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, has been described by investigators as mentally unstable.

Several local rabbis said they aren’t sure what Meza’s video means. Most were dismissive of him and said they didn’t want to give him attention.

Rabbi Yossel Kranz of Chabad of Virginia, a Jewish outreach organization and synagogue on Gaskins Road, said Meza’s video has “nothing to do with religion.”

“From a Jewish perspective, his philosophy and ideas have no standing whatsoever,” Kranz said.

Rabbi Ben Romer of Congregation Or Ami, who served as a military chaplain for 22 years, said bringing weapons into a place of worship “borders on inappropriate.”

“I would not, in the midst of a worship experience, bring a fake, let alone a real, AK-47,” he said. “It’s the antithesis of what the Sabbath is for me.”

The video was filmed Jan. 8 after the Sabbath ended but while the celebration continued inside the Henrico County home of Meza’s friend, Joseph Kolakowski,a former rabbi at Congregation Kol Emes in Richmond.

Kolakowski said he thinks some people in the local Jewish community are overreacting to the video. However, he was annoyed that while he was praying, Meza, a gun collector and hunter who feeds the kill to his dogs, passed around his guns.

He found it disrespectful. “It was a lack of proper synagogue decorum during the prayers,” he said.

When Meza posted the video, Kolakowski asked him to take it down. Meza, a computer programmer, initially refused.

But then one of the synagogues where Kolakowski worships, the Rudlin Torah Academy boarding school, asked him not to return for a while, because school leaders were uncomfortable with the video, which got about 2,000 hits in five days. After that, Meza made the YouTube video private.

Meza moved to Richmond in 2009 to work with Kolakowski at Kol Emes. Soon after he arrived, Kolakowski was dismissed. He later founded a Hasidic institute to grow the community, and they worship together and minister to students at Virginia Commonwealth University. Meza is not Hasidic.

Meza is developing an online ministry through Facebook and nine websites he maintains, including the Spanish serjudio.org, as well as BeJewish.org and GunsandFaith.com.

He is the son of Colombian immigrants who grew up in Miami. He studied to be a rabbi in Israel and then moved to Henrico with his wife and daughter. Next month, he is moving to New York to be part of a larger Jewish community.

He said his video warns Jews to take precautions because “being religious has become synonymous with being weak.”

“In this day and age, with all the Jew hatred going around, there is no reason why a (Jew) should not pack heat on Shabbos,” he said in another YouTube video he made in December.

Meza shows off 10 guns, loading and unloading them and pointing them at the camera.

Quoting the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, he says “Every Jew a .22.” then adds, “Perhaps we could do with a little bit more power.”

He then implores video watchers to “go to your local gun store and start packing.”

38 Comments

  • Yossi

    People Ignored Jabotinsky when he said the Jews in Europe were living on the edge of a volcano, His slogan was, “better to have a gun and not need it than to need it and not have it!” Another call to arms was, “Jewish youth, learn to shoot!” or in yiddish as was written then “Yidden darf visen shissen”
    i dont know what Kranz is talking about? what does “From a Jewish perspective, his philosophy and ideas have no standing whatsoever” mean? Jews should not defend them selfs? owning a gun is against Judaism?

  • Milhouse

    What kind of Jews get nervous at the very mention of guns? And where in the Torah is there any hint that “Weapons, especially … an automatic rifle, have no place in a synagogue”? The am ho’oretz who said that has probably never learned hilchos beis haknesses, and has no idea what does or doesn’t have a place in a shul. As for the school that stopped the rov from teaching there because there was a video made in his shul?! Words fail for that sort of stupidity.

    On the other hand, I’m not sure where this Meza gets a heter to carry a weapon on Shabbos in Richmond, even inside the eruv. It’s muktzeh, and the level of sakonoh in that neighbourhood is surely not great enough to justify it. Still, it’s a judgment call and perhaps he sees a greater sakonoh than I do.

  • To Milhouse

    We need this and your dunb questions like a luchinkup. All it does is provke antisemetic morons to do one better.

    Come on we’re not afraid of you. We’ll show you just try something and this is what you’ll get.

  • Enough with this guy.

    This is the guy who runs the not to be named website trying to convince non-Jews to convert to Judaism. Enough said…

  • he-s right

    btw, he’s absolutely right!! i know a number of lubavitchers who carry guns, yes, even on shabbos, you never know when it’s going to save a life or more.

  • Be careful

    Keep in mind ALWAYS, that a gun in the hands of the untrained is the most irresponsible and poentially dangeruos thing a person a can do. so you wanna own a gun, ok, go get the right training, know the responsibility it is.

  • Shmo Bagel

    To the idiot that thinks there is nothing wrong with bringing a gun in to a Shul:

    I usually do not like preaching but one of the few things that i remember from yeshivah is that the temple was not allowed to be built with any iron tools because the temple was a place of peace and iron is used for weapons. So its really not respectful to to pass around guns in a Shul.

    http://thepassionofthejew.b

  • Detroit

    i agree with # 11 i carry a gun 7 days week yes on shabbos also
    do you think what happened in mumbai India cant happen anywhere
    you are dead wrong

  • sumgai

    this guy is insane. he tries to convert goyim to judaism and believes that all lubavitchers are elokistim. he’s got a handful of followers and is known as deranged by everyone else.

  • Milhouse

    #15, another am ho’oretz heard from. You admit that you remember few things from yeshivah, and it shows. You are 100% wrong; only the mizbeach may not be made with iron. There is no such restriction on building the rest of the BHMK.

    And there is certainly no restriction on carrying weapons in the BHMK. What do you think the kohanim were going around with all day? That’s right, iron knives, to kill the korbonos. Where did Shmuel killed Agog, and where did Benoyohu kill Yo’ov? Inside the mishkon, and they had no problem bringing in their swords.

    In short, like a true am ho’oretz, you’ve confused pretty droshos with real halocho, and come up short.

    As for a shul, which despite all the droshos about “mikdash me’at” is NOT a BHMK, there is certainly no reason not to bring weapons in.

  • Milhouse

    #16, where do you live that you give yourself such a heter? It is clear in shulchon oruch, black on white, that one may not carry weapons on Shabbos. Now in some places there is a sakonoh, and so one may transgress this prohibition; but to get such a heter each individual situation must be looked at separately and carefully. If you’re living on a yishuv in the Shomron, the danger is obvious, but even there you must first ask a rov for a heter, unless it’s mamash an emergency. But if you’re living in Oak Park or Southfield, you have no right to carry without first asking a rov for a clear analysis of the level of danger that would permit it.

  • Milhouse

    #18, What’s wrong with trying to convert goyim? Isn’t that what Avrohom Ovinu did? The gemoro says the only reason we were exiled among the nations is so that gerim should be added to us.

    The common idea that we must try to discourage gerim is utterly untrue. The shulchon oruch clearly says that when someone applies for gerus and we see that he’s sincere, we must be careful not to scare him away by exaggerating how hard it is. While we must give him a realistic idea of the difficulty in being Jewish, we must also emphasize the reward he will get if he goes through with it. The idea is not to get rid of him, but to make sure he understands what he’s getting himself into, so that he won’t have complaints later.

  • Jew

    It depends.

    If you care about what other people think of you, don’t show them things that will upset them. Like, if you are a liberal, and you want all the goyim in the whole world to see you as a fine-mannered, well-behaved, non-Muslim, deeply-concerned-about-the-environment Jew, then yes: there is no place for destructive weapons in Judaism.

    However, If you don’t care about what the goyim will think, and you don’t care to earn their approval, and if you are proud of your heritage, and if you are wise enough to have figured out the only language your enemies understand, than yes: Every Jew a .22

    As for shluchim, it is difficult to take the latter position since their image amongst the goyim, the yidden, and their community demands a very delicate handling if they are to be successful in their work. Leave it up to them to decide which political statements to make.

  • Jew

    Actually, after viewing the video, I think I made a mistake.

    Regardless of what viewers of the video think, the fact is that a mistaken trigger will blow a hole right through the belly of one of somebody’d beketche. Maybe a kid’s. I could easily envision the people screaming with blood squirting all over the place.

    Not a good idea.

  • To #15

    Building is one thing; carrying in is another. Nowhere in all of halachah is there any rule against carrying weapons into the Beis Hamikdash (after it’s built), so neither is there any such rule about a shul.

  • fed up

    Carrying a concealed weapon is one thing It is a personal choice but carrying & showing off a ak-47? This guy definitely has a few screws loose& his shtik won’t fly in NY

  • Milhouse

    #25, How is concealed carry MORE appropriate than open carry? On the contrary, the second amendment has traditionally been understood not to guarantee the right to carry concealed, and states have been allowed to restrict that. But open carry is surely protected by the 2A.

  • go-d-s right hand man

    Well it is clearly an arcane rule of the mishnah brura that it is forbidden to enter a beis knessess with an uncovered/unprotected head and a long knife/sword.
    So in the “state of israel” it is common for congregants to own weapons yet when they enter a holy place they are forbidden to have a weapon at the tomb of the patriarchs, etc..
    So weapons in a shul, temple is wrong, it is a mitzvah to know how to swim and to defend yourself/protect your health and life.
    I commend Mr. Meza and encourage Rabbi’s to refuse to allow the wool be pulled over the eyes of their congregants as happened in Nazi Germany.
    The difference between christianity and judaism is more than amount of prayers it is a jew’s responsibility to be a role model/ohr legoyim.
    Different people convert to judaism for different reasons, if you have a choice let it not be because the rabbi failed to advise and/or share enough information with his congregants.

  • awacs

    “On the contrary, the second amendment has traditionally been understood not to guarantee the right to carry concealed, and states have been allowed to restrict that. But open carry is surely protected by the 2A.”

    Uh, Milhouse, as someone who holds a CCW permit, I invite you to carry a Glock on your hip into the good ol’ Seven-One and proclaim your constitutional rights. Let me know how you make out. :-)

  • Milhouse

    #29, do you have any idea what you’re talking about? What mishne brura?

    You can’t take weapons into the Me’aras Hamachpela because of SECURITY, not because of the holiness of the place! The government couldn’t care less about the holiness. They’re just trying to prevent a shootout.

  • sc

    This guy in mamosh a meshuggeneh. While I own weapons and believe strongly that Jews should be well armed you can be stupid with them. My bigger problem with him is his youtube videos. On one he clearly says that if you are not serving Hashem you are not a Jew, that you are not born a Jew. He has this whole reasoning for this based on shelo asani goy. He is also openly proslytizing to goyim and this is something that we dont do.

  • awacs

    “Awacs, the goons of the NYPD don’t believe the 2A applies in NYC.”

    Right. My point was that a constitutional right doesn’t do much for you until it is reduced to the level where the cop on the beat knows about it.

    BTW, one of the (many) anomalies of NYS gun law is that you may not open carry, even if you have a CCW permit. Go figure.