Jessica Russak-Hoffman | JNS

The Silver Spring Jewish Center sued Montgomery County July 30 over a new firearms ordinance that restricts congregants and volunteers from carrying guns in houses of worship and other designated “places of public assembly.”

The Orthodox synagogue and Rabbi J. Menashe Shapiro, a student at Georgetown University Law Center, filed the federal lawsuit against the county, County Executive Marc Elrich, Police Chief Marc Yamada and State’s Attorney John McCarthy.

The lawsuit challenges Expedited Bill 23-26, which prohibits carrying firearms “in or within 100 yards of a place of public assembly,” including houses of worship, schools, parks, libraries, hospitals and government buildings. The measure allows paid security personnel to carry firearms but bars volunteers and private individuals from doing so, according to the complaint. Elrich signed legislation July 27.

Shapiro told JNS that the restrictions are “extremely disruptive” to the synagogue’s security plans.

“I serve on the security committee of my synagogue, and it is important that we be able to protect ourselves,” he said. “Especially since Oct. 7, but as recent as last month, we’ve faced threats. This law makes it impossible to be prepared.”

The synagogue formed an armed volunteer security team after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to the complaint. It also cites an October 2024 attack on a visibly Jewish congregant outside the synagogue and an attempted entry into the building by an unknown person on June 9.

“Our lawsuit specifically challenges two things: the ban on carrying in houses of worship and the 100-yard perimeter,” Shapiro told JNS, adding that the ordinance “also violates our religious beliefs.”

“Jewish law requires Jews to provide for their own security, and that means carrying firearms when necessary,” he told JNS. “I wish it weren’t necessary, but it is and we must.”

Shapiro, who lives in Silver Spring with his wife and four children, noted that the ordinance’s 100-yard zone creates a second issue: legally carrying firearms while walking.

“As a personal example, in order for me to get from my house to the synagogue at which I usually daven, I pass within 100 yards of two public schools, one private school, two parks and three other houses of worship,” he said.

Shapiro told JNS that the bill was “ill-conceived” and “designed to score points in an election year, even though the County Council and executive know it is going to be struck down by the courts.”

“Members of the Jewish community pleaded with them that this presented a fundamental threat to our safety, but it fell on deaf ears,” he said. “Now we turn to the courts for relief.”

‘No reason whatsoever’

Jack Leeb, a police psychologist who conducts gun safety courses in the local Jewish community, told JNS that “there is no reason whatsoever to restrict the ability to carry a firearm, especially in houses of worship, other than to control the population.”

“The issue of Second Amendment rights is a constant struggle between those who would have us believe that we are safe because the government says we are, and the reality that there is evil all around us, including, potentially, in every government composed of human beings,” Leeb said.

He told JNS that statistics that “allegedly prove that average citizens are less safe with a firearm have been proved false over and over again” but that “none of this matters to the government bureaucrats who insist that they will protect us.”

Steve Birnbaum, the founder and CEO of the Jewish nonprofit Collective Threat Response Initiative, similarly voiced his concerns. CTRI trains and licenses community members in the D.C. area, employing the motto, “Providing security for the Jewish community, from the Jewish community.” Participants in CTRI’s Guardian program learn advanced firearm and tactical skills, and must be eligible to carry a firearm, among other rigorous training and qualification standards, to ultimately protect an area synagogue, Jewish school or other Jewish institution.

Expedited Bill 23-26, as written, makes it “impossible” for Montgomery County’s Jewish community to receive the same level of protection available to all other communities in the region, Birnbaum wrote in a statement to Washington Jewish Week.

CTRI staff raised several concerns with the county council before the bill was signed, proposing target amendments to address them. Birnbaum said he remains hopeful that the council will work with CTRI to implement these changes.

“The ordinance effectively creates an unfunded mandate: it removes the tools many synagogues rely on to protect themselves while providing no alternative short of spending millions more than the Jewish community already spends on security,” Birnbaum wrote. “That includes security not just for synagogues, but the public gatherings that define Jewish communal life: Menorah lightings, Tashlich [and] community events where large numbers of Jews gather in open, exposed spaces.”

He added that the ordinance particularly affects Jews who observe Shabbat, as halacha forbids them to drive from sundown on Friday to sundown Saturday. The bill makes an exception for travel, which applies only to those in vehicles. “Walking to synagogue is not a preference; it is a religious obligation,” Birnbaum wrote. “Under this ordinance, a licensed security guard who is Shomer Shabbat cannot legally carry a firearm on the route they are required to walk from their home to the synagogue. The law does not just restrict where they can carry. It eliminates their ability to do their job entirely.

“A synagogue should have the right to decide how to protect its own congregation,” Birnbaum wrote. “Montgomery County has made that decision for them, and left them less safe as a result.”

Mark Chenoweth, president and chief legal officer at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, attorneys for the synagogue, stated that “It boggles the mind in the current antisemitic climate that the county would deny a synagogue the ability to defend worshippers as it sees fit.”

“Such interference in the internal management of a place of worship violates the First Amendment, too,” he said.

The attorneys are seeking a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the ordinance while the lawsuit proceeds.

Zoe Bell contributed reporting to this article.