This is what the JDL tried to teach the Jew: that violence is never good but sometimes necessary and that Jewish violence to protect Jewish interests is never bad. Jewish violence is meant to do several things:

1. Change the Jewish image and teach the anti-Semite that Jewish blood is not cheap and that the Jew is not always a victim.

2. Protect Jewish property, persons and lives by letting the Jew-hater know that he is in danger of losing his.

3. Destroy the Jewish neuroses and fears that contribute so much encouragement to the anti-Semite as well as Jewish belief in his own worthlessness. We want to instill self-respect and self-pride in a Jew who is ashamed of himself for running away.

4. Teach the Jew that the pain of every Jew is his own pain and that it is his obligation to do all that is necessary - even violence - to defend another Jew.

I was in the habit of ending most of my speeches by quoting a magnificent D'var Torah (Torah statement) by the late, world renowned scholar, the Rebbe of Gur, who said:

"We are told that when the L-rd desired to give the Torah to the Jewish people, instead of choosing some lofty and majestic mountain, He selected Sinai, a small, humble little mount barely more than a hill. His purpose in this symbolic act was to show that man must turn his back on overbearing pride, must reject false ego.

"And the Rebbe then asked: G-d's intentions are indeed laudable. Yet, if He intended to show that man must not be a mountain and must turn down false pride, why was the Torah not given in a valley?"

The answer he gave is clear and bold:

"It is not enough to reject overbearing pride. Too much humbleness is also, itself, wrong. Man should, man must, possess some pride in his being - otherwise he is not a man."

I never cease to be amazed that we continue to be valleys. I never cease wondering at our choosing the way of the meek. One would imagine that after all the vandals we Jews have known, after all the police help we have failed to receive, we would have remembered the lesson of the mountain.

There are times when we must still - just for the moment - the voice of Jacob, and for the sake of Jewish honor, of Jewish protection, don the hand of Esau.

There are those who will protest: This is not the Jewish way. And yet since when has it been a mitzvah to be punished and beaten? Since when is it a Kiddush Hashem (Sanctification of G-d) to be spat upon? It is not a Kiddush Hashem, it is quite the opposite. It is a disgrace to the pride of our people, our G-d.

Vandals attack a synagogue? Let that synagogue attack the vandals. Should a gang bloody a Jew, let a Jewish group go looking for the gang. This is the way of pride, not evil pride, but the pride of nation, of kinship - the pride of the mountain.