134	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

bswiftly move to trample Jews when their own noses will be bbloodied and when the taking of a Jewish life is pursued at bthe risk of his own.

b“The problem is not the non-Jew, but the Jew. What is bneeded is a change in his psychology and in the way he looks bat the gun. He must be made to understand that, in a world bwhere the nations master the art of shooting, Jewish survival bdepends upon Jewish knowledge of the same and on non- bJewish knowledge that the Jew has this knowledge. A wild bdog fears a whip; the mad-dog anti-Semite fears the gun. He bshould; being proficient with it, he knows what it can do to bthe Jew—and to himself. With love of peace and desire for btranquility: young Jewish men and women, learn to shoot.”

bWe were no fools. None of us expected that, in the advent bof another Hitler, the JDL could save American Jewry. Not bone and not one hundred JDLs could do that. But it was the bbeginning, the local Hiders who could be dealt with speedily band well if Jews knew how. It was the neighborhood and blocalized hate, attacks, and anti-Semitism that could be bneutralized and punished. This is why the JDL embarked in bAugust 1971 on a serious campaign called “Every Jew a .22.” bThe major impetus was given by the brutal and senseless bmurder of a 59-year-old former concentration camp inmate bcandy store owner, Benjamin Spiewak. Two men had en- btered his store and asked for apple pie. Spiewak replied: b“We don’t have apple pie.” One of the men pulled out a gun band killed him.

bThe East Flatbush neighborhood where the killing had boccurred had once been a quiet, predominantly Jewish area. bLying on the fringe of the horror that was now Brownsville, bit began to change. Crime rose rapidly, robbery and mug- bgings were common, and Spiewak was not the first merchant bkilled. JDL had begun crime patrols there but they had bended when the residents refused to share the load. Now bSpiewak was dead and the neighborhood was frightened band outraged. I immediately announced a program of bself-defense that involved nightly patrols equipped with btwo-way radios and legal weapons; guards at selected stores bwho would be armed; a check on principals in the neighbor- b