A Hasidic rabbi created a Shabbat jacket for carrying guns in synagogues
Rabbi Raziel Cohen demonstrates how to use the Tactical Kapota, a jacket designed for easily accessing a weapon. Courtesy of Rabbi Raziel Cohen
(JTA) — Rabbi Raziel Cohen doesn’t want you to have to draw a gun in synagogue. But if you must, he doesn’t want you to waste precious time unbuttoning your kapota, a type of jacket worn by men in the Chabad Hasidic community on Shabbat and Jewish holidays.
So Cohen, a firearms instructor who goes by the moniker “The Tactical Rabbi,” worked with Shaul Snovsky, who sells kapotas in South Florida, to create the Tactical Kapota. The jacket, which looks like any other kapota, closes with snaps instead of buttons for easy opening. Its cost: $550.
“The issue came up with when you wear a kapota … the ‘gartel’ gets in the way and the kapota gets in the way and it can make it dangerous to draw your weapon,” Cohen said, using the Yiddish word for the belt worn over the kapota.
By adding snaps underneath the buttons, the Tactical Kapota looks like a regular jacket.
“Usually in a shul we try to keep a low profile, we don’t want to look like we’re in a war zone,” Cohen said.
A video ad for the kapota shows a man studying in a synagogue when the building is attacked. The man fumbles to unbutton his kapota to reach his holstered gun until the words “every second counts” flash across the screen. The video then shows the man unsnapping the Tactical Kapota in seconds before drawing his gun.
Snovsky said some people thought the video wasn’t for real. It’s completely serious, he insists.
“I’m not selling fear over here, I’m selling awareness,” he said. “Some people are calling me and saying is it a joke, and it’s not a joke. You just never thought about it.”
—
The post A Hasidic rabbi created a Shabbat jacket for carrying guns in synagogues appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
