Guns and Jews

Guns and Jews
© Rabbi Menachem Creditor

Jewish tradition has long viewed weapons as ugly, utilized only as a response to threat. The fetishizing of guns in American culture means that America's battle over the Second Amendment is also a battle to maintain the Second Command: to not create idols out of guns. It is as the Prophet Jeremiah said, long ago: "I say that there are those in our country to whom Jeremiah would say today: “On your shirt is found the life-blood of guiltless poor. Yet in spite of all these things, you say ‘I am innocent.’" 

If we stand idly by the blood of our sisters and brothers, spilled on our streets, campuses, theaters, Navy Yards, and houses of worship, we are all complicit in every death.