Henya Chein has always been terrified of guns. The Orthodox Jewish artist and mother of two felt uneasy about her husband\u2019s decision to buy a handgun after they moved to Florida from New York last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would just block it out of my mind that it\u2019s in the house,\u201d Chein, 26, said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But after watching the events unfold in Israel, <\/strong>she\u2019s taken steps she never imagined herself ever taking. Chein attended a gun safety seminar at her synagogue last week followed by a one-on-one session at a local shooting range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven at the range, I just wanted to drop the gun and run back home,\u201d Chein said. \u201cI was so scared, and I\u2019m terrified of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But she said she felt \u201cforced to do it because Jewish people are not safe anywhere now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deadly terrorist attack in Israel and the torrent of social media threats that followed have forced many American Jews to reconsider their long held stances against owning or using guns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Firearm instructors and Jewish security groups across the country say they have been flooded with new clientele since Hamas assaulted Israel on Oct. 7. And gun shop owners in Florida say they have seen more Jews purchase firearms in recent weeks than ever before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely seen a tremendous increase in religious Jewish people, Orthodox people, purchasing firearms,\u201d said David Kowalsky, who owns Florida Gun Store in the town of Hollywood, and also offers firearms training classes. \u201cI\u2019ve seen a surge in interest in individual training as well as group training.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kowalsky, who is Jewish, said local synagogues had reached out to him to host gun training seminars and shooting sessions in the past week. At one gun safety seminar he hosted this past week, Kowalsky said most participants were new to guns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThese are mothers, teachers, the majority of them are mostly people who have never interacted with firearms or thought about owning them,\u201d Kowalsky said. \u201cThere\u2019s a safety concern. I think people are nervous about what\u2019s going on and what can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rabbi Yossi Eilfort runs Magen Am, a nonprofit in Los Angeles that provides self-defense classes and firearm training to the Jewish community. He said they\u2019ve received more than 600 calls in the last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe can\u2019t put down the phone without picking up the next one,\u201d said Eilfort said. \u201cThe calls for self-defense training, situational awareness training \u2014 \u2018How do I make my shop or my institution a harder target?\u2019 \u2014 has just been really, really nonstop.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is not uncommon for targeted groups to seek out self-defense measures after public attacks or threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some American Jews said they had first become interested in gun ownership after a 2018 shooting<\/a> at a Pittsburgh synagogue killed 11 people. A 2022 study<\/a> from the University of Michigan found that Asian Americans who experienced racism during the pandemic were more likely to acquire firearms and ammunition for self-defense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But in many Jewish communities, gun ownership is a taboo subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe majority of Jews in the country historically have been liberal on the left, pro-gun reform, pro-gun control, opposed to personal gun ownership,\u201d said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran New York-based political strategist who is also an Orthodox rabbi. \u201cJews with guns were always seen as an odd event.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now, Sheinkopf added, it seems the long held view \u2014 of the U.S. being the \u201cone place in the world where Jews are safe \u2014 is coming to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pro-Hamas extremists and neo-Nazis have inundated social media platforms with calls for attacks on\u2002Jewish communities<\/a> and other targets in the U.S. and Europe, prompting U.S. law enforcement agencies to step up their readiness postures, NBC News reported last week<\/a>. And there have been a smattering of hate crime incidents against Jews in the U.S., including an assault recently of a woman<\/a> while she was standing on a busy New York City subway platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n