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November 2009/Cheshvan 5770
A JOURNAL OF JEWISH RESPONSIBILITY
Gun Control
Mindy Finkelstein
The Legacy of
Gun Violence. . . . . . . . . 1
Tom Diaz
Guns, Gun Control,
and American Jews. . . . . 2
Jared Feldman
The Flow of Guns. . . . . . 3
David N. Myers
The Fading Faith
of a Jewish Moral
Exceptionalist . . . . . . . . . 5
Aryeh Cohen
Are They His
Adornments? On Guns
and Masculinity . . . . . . . 7
Yossi Melman
Israel’s Arms . . . . . . . . . 8
Miriam Kramer
& Aaron Levy
A Canadian Perspective
on Gun Control. . . . . . . . 9
Les Fisher
Firearm-Related Injuries
and Deaths. . . . . . . . . . 10
Jessica Zimmerman
The Frisco Kid. . . . . . . . 11
Ari Y. Kelman
Arms for Images . . . . . . 12
Amitai Adler
Living with the
“Arational” . . . . . . . . . . 14
Yona Verwer
“The Kabbalah
of Bling”. . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Bonnie Koppell
NiSh’ma. . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Dyonna Ginsburg
Sh’maEthics . . . . . . . . 20
Few Jews are publicly associated in this country with the National Rifle Association; nearly all of us support some form of gun control. True, the use of guns in the U.S. remains casually — many would say negligently — regulated, but this issue isn't a
matter that especially divides Jewish opinion. The issue of guns becomes far murkier for
Jews when the State of Israel is brought up. On the one hand, few would question the
legitimate right of a sovereign state to protect itself with the use of its arms. But is Israel’s
role in the international sale of arms outsized, even inappropriate? Is it troubling that older
images of the reluctant Israeli warrior have given way to the altogether different ones of
Adam Sandler’s “Zohan” or Steven Spielberg’s “Munich”? Israel and weapons are nearly as
intimately linked as once were Jaffa and oranges, and to the extent to which such images
are modeled on reality, what does this turn mean? —SB
The Legacy of Gun Violence
MINDY FINKELSTEIN
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www.shma.com
On August 10, 1999, I was a carefree six- teen-year-old working as a counselor at a day camp. I could never have anticipated what would happen that day and I
will never forget the details of that morning.
At 9:45 AM a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi walked
into the North Valley Jewish Community Center
(outside Los Angeles) and
shot over 70 rounds of ammunition. I was shot, along
with four others (including
three children). We were the targets of a senseless act of hatred; the crime, according to the
shooter, Bufford Furrow, was “a wake-up call
for America to kill Jews.” All five of the victims survived. Ironically, we were the lucky
ones. Joseph Ileto, a Filipino postal worker
shot later that day by Bufford Furrow, was not
so fortunate.
I remember the details of that day precisely. I recall, as though it were yesterday,
how the detectives spoke with me. Beyond
concern about the crime, they were sensitive
about how it would affect me, given that as a
sixteen-year-old, I was perhaps more impressionable. But more than anything, it was being
attacked as a Jew that most devastated me.
For about a year after I was shot, I did what
any normal sixteen-year-old would do; I basked
in my glory. I took advantage of the attention
it brought me: I met the president and the first
lady; my house overflowed every day with visitors, providing a surreal sense of a continuous
party in my honor. But the attention soon
faded and the reality — that I had been shot
and someone tried to kill me — set in. I was
left alone with my fears and my memories,
haunted by the sounds of helicopters, sirens,
But the attention soon faded and the reality — that I
had been shot and someone tried to kill me — set in.
hammering, and the sight of guns. I experienced such emotional trauma that after my
first freshman week when some students on
the dorm floor were playing with a nerf gun,
my parents had to come and move me back
home. I needed to heal and I couldn’t do so in
a new place where I felt unsafe.
People rarely understand that although
someone survives gun violence, it does not
mean that they return to living a normal life.
A part of me was robbed, not to ever, probably, be redeemed. The shooting will affect me
for the rest of my life. Though time might
make the memories fade, they won’t disappear. Ten years later, I still remember every detail of that day.
At the time of the shooting, Bufford Furrow
was out on parole from the state of Washington;
by all measures, he was criminally insane. He
tried to have himself committed to a mental
