The name's Moscowitz. Rabbi Moscowitz.
Unsure the NYPD can protect them from a terrorist attack during the upcoming high holidays, a bunch of rabbis have taken matters into their own hands.
The group, which bills itself as the International Security Coalition of Clergy, was founded by Rabbi Gary Moscowitz. The mission: Protect synagogues during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish high holidays, at the end of the month.
Moscowitz, who has a black belt in karate, was an NYPD cop for nearly a decade and is a martial arts instructor, founded the coalition, according to The New York Post. The rabbi is teaching other Jews both basic and advanced fighting techniques – how to take down a terrorist by the neck, how to duck and cover under a table during a shootout and how to do a really cool somersault move on the ground while pulling out a weapon – so they'll be prepared if terrorists swarm their synagogues during services.
"Jews are not like Christians," Moscowitz told the Post. "If I turn my cheek, I'm coming around to make a kick."
While the 52-year-old rabbi admits he doesn't think Muslims as a group are dangerous, he told the Post he and his fellow rabbis were just concerned about the safety of temples, which have been consistently threatened with "rhetoric and extremism."
Most people thought Moscowitz's plan was a joke until May, when the FBI arrested homegrown Muslim terrorists accused of plotting to blow up temples in the Bronx.
Local
Since then, tons of people have been seeking his training and he established a 100-hour class for synagogue self-defense, according to the Post.
Why can't the NYPD adequately defend temples? Moscowitz says cops don't know the members of the congregation, so a terrorist could just pose as a congregant and walk in.
An NYPD spokesman told the Post Moscowitz had been fired from the force in the early 1990s, but didn't have further information.
As for the rabbi's criticism of the NYPD, Paul Browne told the paper, "Blessed are the right of lip for they shall resist speaking ill of the ill-informed."
