A law enforcement vehicle is parked at a school in the area where a man believed to have taken people hostage at a synagogue during services that were being streamed live, in Colleyville, Texas, U.S. January 15, 2022. REUTERS/Shelby Tauber

The horrific events this past Shabbat at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, highlighted once again that there are forces out there who hate Jews and everything that the Jewish people represent and stand for.

They hate our hard work; our self-determination; our contributions to society; our hope. The synagogue attack was a favorite story for too many in this country, who like to promote the notion of the weak Jew who cowers in fear and must be heroically rescued by responding law enforcement or their gentile brothers and sisters. The “frightened Jew” is a narrative that featured in all the major news media these past few days. It is one that is regularly portrayed not just in mainstream media, but on social media and in Hollywood as well. Comedians joke about it. Pundits cry about it. Jewish organizations wrestle with one another to scream it from the top of their lungs for everyone to hear.

But American Jews should not and will not cower. We have proudly been part of American society since its earliest founding days. We have stood on the right side of history again and again and when confronted with threats, we have learned the hard way how to protect ourselves. These are not the days of the Holocaust, and contrary to what some Jewish leaders whom I respect may say, the situation is very different than it is for European Jews.

I have had the privilege of training thousands and thousands of Jews and gentiles at hundreds of organizations in active shooter response, security awareness and other emergency procedures over the past 10-plus years. The goals of these trainings are for people to feel empowered and understand their options — not to be left scared and feeling helpless.

Our conversations must go deeper than just the usefulness of, and need for, security trainings. Critically, we must also recognize the many inadequacies of the security posture and policies of so many synagogues and other houses of worship in this country. Security is inconvenient and expensive, and too often, we are more willing to pay the expense than inconvenience ourselves or tweak our cultural norms.

Trainings work, but they are only one piece of the puzzle. That is why in Colleyville a few days ago — despite the headlines and the praise for law enforcement — the reality was that the hostages in large part saved themselves, after first literally opening the door for this terrorist to enter. The congregation’s rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, ultimately threw a chair at the shooter and the hostages thankfully ran out of the building to safety. They took action when they saw the opportunity. While making some mistakes at first, they ultimately drew upon their limited training to help save themselves.

And this is not the first time Jews have fought back in recent years. In the California synagogue assault at the Chabad of Poway in 2019, when hearing the shooter begin his attack on innocents, a congregant ran towards the perpetrator — not away from him — and yelled, “I’m going to kill you!” Rattled, and with a jammed gun, the shooter ran away and the incident ended prematurely. This is something that experts find repeatedly when studying active shootings and reading past the headlines. It is unique not just to Jews, but in attacks across the United States and around the world.

The reality is that Jews have been the disproportionate target of hate crimes in this country for many years, and this needs to be highlighted and addressed. It is a narrative that has not been particularly popular to hear in recent years, generally shunned by the mainstream media. This, despite the fact that Jewish Americans are the lead victims of religiously motivated hate crimes in this country, year after year.  Instead, Jews are too often wrongly seen as just another privileged, “white” class of Americans that need to keep their heads down and stop trying to “play the victim card.”

And so we do. We are careful not to rock the boat. We laugh uneasily at the jokes made about how weak and scared Jews are on the one hand, and how evil and aggressive the Israelis and Zionists (read: Jews) of the world are on the other hand. We file our security incidents with law enforcement, and shrug our shoulders when we discover that too many police fail to file formal reports for fear of feeding soaring crime statistics.

It is true that a little light will combat much darkness. But it is also true that there is still a lot of good in this world. Jews have been protecting their way of life, and the lives of others, for millennia, whether in the United States or around the world — and we will continue to do so. Jews have nothing to be ashamed of and everything to be proud of. These are not the darkest times for Jews in this country or in world history; not even close. Jews have many allies. We have the silent majority in this country behind us. We serve proudly in all levels of government, the military, law enforcement, academia, entertainment and the sciences. We should be celebrating these accomplishments.

What is needed is for the silent majority in this country to start speaking up. Jews are unique in that they are hated by the far right, by the far left, and by radical Islamists. Haters might say that it is a sign that we are responsible for all the evils in the world, but in reality, it is a sign of their ignorance. The far-left elements in the Democratic party need to be condemned by their fellow Democrats, and not ignored or excused. The same is true for the extremists in the Republican party. And brave Muslim leaders such as Duke University Professor Abdullah Antepli, a founder of the Muslim Leadership Initiative, should be praised for his calls on fellow Muslims to address their own “alarming internal problem” of “increasing antisemitism” that necessitates “morally required tough conversations.”

Attacks on Jews — both verbal and physical, and whether on our city streets or on college campuses — must be condemned by all good members of society, and these stories should not be ignored or pushed to the back pages of our news media.

Jews will not cower and should not be scared. Colleyville should, and will, serve as yet another wakeup call for the Jewish community and all of our allies, that we must learn from these events and do a better job of protecting ourselves and speaking out against hate.

And we will.

Dr. Joshua Gleis is president of Gleis Security Consulting. Before starting his company, Gleis worked with, and for, multiple Jewish organizations, focusing on the security of the Jewish people. He works with hundreds of houses of worship to target harden their facilities and improve their security, and has trained thousands in situational awareness and active shooter response.