Self Defense is essential to freedom.

November 8 and 9  is the anniversary of  Kristallnacht (literally “Crystal night”) or the “Night of Broken Glass”.  In 1938 “99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps.  267 synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked. This was done by the Hitler Youth, Gestapo, SS and SA. Kristallnacht also served as a pretext and a means for the wholesale confiscation of firearms from German Jews.”

The premise was “the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew.”

This pogram foreshadowed the German war against the Jews, though they had been stripped of common rights before this event. “Kristallnacht also marked a turning point in relations between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world. The brutality of the program and the Nazi government’s deliberate policy of encouraging the violence once it had begun, laid bare the repressive nature and widespread anti-Semitism entrenched in Germany, and turned world opinion sharply against the Nazi regime, with some politicians even calling for war.” The United States recalled its ambassador but maintained diplomatic relations.

November 10 was Martin Luther’s birthday. Martin Luther has called for the burning of synagogues hundreds of years before and some Protestant clergy use his writings to justify the horrendous action.

Some synagogues have been recently rebuilt.

quotes from Wikipedia

In a footnote in his new book “Saving Israel” author Daniel Gordis notes why he uses the word “Shoah” as opposed to the more common “Holocaust.”

In Hebrew “Shoah” means “calamity”. “Holocaust” is an English word that means “burnt offering” or “sacrifice of God”. The Jews of Europe were not sacrificed, they were murdered; there is big difference.

It seems Jews take their words seriously.