Today, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America – the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization — commended the President’s plan for new measures to reduce gun violence and increase school safety in the United States, in the wake of the tragic events last month in Newtown, CT.
Among the proposals in the new initiative to make schools safer, the federal government would help cover the cost of 1,000 new “School Resource Officers.” The program will provide federal funding to local police departments to hire the new personnel. Police departments will then partner with local schools to place the new officers with the students who need them most.
The Orthodox Union has been informed by The White House that the funding proposal may be used to place the new officers in Jewish and other nonpublic schools to provide security, counseling, and safety education.
Nathan Diament, the Union’s Executive Director for Public Policy, commended President Obama’s proposal stating:
“The Orthodox Union supports common sense measures to reduce gun violence — including banning certain sophisticated attack weapons. The Orthodox Union also strongly stands for the principle that safety and security measures for schools must protect all schools and all children from harm — whether they attend public, private or parochial schools. We commend President Obama for proposing a plan that contains this fundamental principle of fairness. We will work with the Administration and Congress — as well as Governors and state legislatures — to ensure this principle applies to any school safety efforts.”
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3 Responses
The OU is much more than a Kashrus organization. A major
international Chesed project of theirs is the OU Job Board
(www.oujobs.org) for online job training and job
placement.
The president is seeking to disarm millions of law abiding
citizens and place them at the mercy of criminals.
My Open letter to the OU about their Gun Control Statement
As an Orthodox veteran of the IDF and as an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor, I was very dismayed to read in your recent statement that, “The Orthodox Union supports common sense measures to reduce gun violence – including banning certain sophisticated attack weapons.”
This sounds like a line straight out of the extreme left’s agenda to disarm Americans and to take away their 2nd Amendment rights.
Calling it “common sense measures” is just a patronizing way of saying that one side of the debate is rational and the other is not. Additionally, saying that you support “banning certain sophisticated attack weapons” is oversimplifying this deeply intense debate and shows a clear lack of understanding about guns, statistics of gun related injuries and deaths, and our Constitutional Rights.
I’d be happy to assist you in the future in coming up with a more appropriate wording for a statement that would reflect much better our traditional American and Jewish values .
Best regards,
Josh Wander