Yonatan Stern

I grew up in the settlement of Kiryat Arba in Israel. I served in the

IDF, and volunteered in the Israel police, learned in Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and studied Government and Diplomacy at the IDC Herzliya. I was a political activist against the Gaza withdrawal in 2005. I decided to leave Israel after I came to the conclusion that the Israeli government has abandoned its mission by surrendering Gaza to the enemy despite our efforts to stop the withdrawal. I was also appalled by Israel’s gun control policies which prohibit Israeli citizens from owning firearms for self-defense, while doing nothing to stop Palestinian terrorists from getting armed with heavy weaponry, leading to deadly terror attacks. I decided to move to the US where I would establish an Israeli firearms training school devoted to teaching American Jews defensive shooting skills, while promoting gun ownership within the wider Jewish community. I am now the director of Cherev Gidon Israeli Tactical Training Academy in Honesdale, PA. I am currently very active in security efforts among Jewish communities across the USA, and when I’m not busy giving firearm lessons, I conduct security assessments and consultations for Synagogues.

I feel that my mission in life is to change the mindset of Jews in regards to weapons and self-defense, and in so doing create a type of “new Jew” that will no longer be weak or a victim of others. I feel my family’s experiences in the Holocaust have influenced this mission, as my grandparents deportation to Auschwitz from Hungary and subsequent gassing of my aunt and uncle by the Nazis there taught me that we as a people can never again be weak and helpless and must take our destiny into our own hands. I feel deeply connected to the Jewish people and the land of Israel, despite the fact that I cannot live in Israel at the current time and have had to make my life abroad. To me, the Jewish people is a nation, not just a religion. One can practice “Judaism” yet completely cut themselves off from the greater Jewish people. To me, being Jewish includes loyalty to the Jewish nation as a whole, including those Jews who do not necessarily belong to your own stream. To give you an example of how this comes into practice in my own life, I train Jews from diverse backgrounds, including secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, Ashkenazim, Sefardim, etc.