A Cat Has Nine Lives. How Many Do We Have?

This time, we got lucky. But even a cat only has nine lives, and eventually luck runs out.

That is the thought I keep coming back to after the shooting outside the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario. The incident has been reported, but I am not sure the most important parts of the story are receiving the attention they deserve.

About two dozen people were inside the synagogue observing Yom Kippur when a man armed with a shotgun opened fire on a police officer stationed outside. The officer was seriously wounded. Police returned fire, and the gunman was shot and later died.

Those are the basic facts. But to me, there are two larger stories coming out of Belleville.

The first is about a police officer who put his life on the line protecting his community. We use the words “protect and serve” so often that it is easy to forget what they can actually require of the men and women who wear the uniform. In Belleville, an officer went to work and found himself facing an armed man with a shotgun outside a synagogue on Yom Kippur. He was seriously wounded doing his job.

I consider that officer a hero. Whatever we eventually learn about the gunman’s intentions, the officer confronted an armed threat and responded at enormous personal risk. His presence changed how the incident unfolded, and that deserves to be recognized.

The second story is about what could have happened if he had not been there.

Police have not established that the synagogue or Jewish community was the gunman’s intended target. We do not know whether he intended to enter the building, and we should not turn speculation into fact. But being responsible with the facts does not mean we should avoid asking an obvious and uncomfortable question: What happens if the police aren’t there?

An armed man with a shotgun was outside a synagogue on Yom Kippur. Approximately two dozen worshippers were inside. Gunfire erupted and police intervened. When it was over, the people inside the synagogue were able to go home.

We cannot know what would have happened otherwise. But we should not allow the absence of mass casualties to make us complacent about how serious the circumstances were.

After spending much of my professional life in security and risk management, I have learned that successful security can create a strange paradox. When it fails, everyone sees the consequences. When it succeeds, what matters most may be something that never happened.

There was no mass-casualty event in Belleville. There were no funerals for worshippers who had gathered to observe Yom Kippur. There was no national reckoning over people murdered inside a Canadian synagogue.

Perhaps that is why the deeper story has received relatively little attention. We tend to judge an incident by its outcome rather than by what could reasonably have occurred had circumstances been slightly different.

How many times can we rely on luck?

For some time, many Canadian Jews have been asking where rising antisemitism, increasingly hostile rhetoric and growing tensions might eventually lead.

Each incident tends to be treated separately. A threat is one story. Vandalism is another. Intimidation is another. Increased security outside synagogues and Jewish schools gradually becomes part of normal life.

Then something happens that forces us to consider whether we should continue looking at each event in isolation.

Belleville does not establish the gunman’s motive, and it does not prove that an attack on the synagogue was intended. But it does demonstrate how quickly an armed encounter outside a Jewish institution can become a matter of life and death.

One of the most dangerous assumptions in risk management is that because the worst outcome has not happened yet, the risk cannot be that serious. That is not how risk works. Sometimes the warning is found precisely in the event that almost became something worse.

That is why I keep thinking about the old expression that a cat has nine lives.

How many times can we depend on the right police officer being in the right place? How many times can an armed incident occur near a Jewish institution without ending in mass casualties before we stop describing the absence of tragedy as reassurance?

I don’t know what would have happened in Belleville without that officer, and neither does anyone else. What I do know is that approximately two dozen people entered a synagogue to observe Yom Kippur and, after gunfire erupted outside, they were able to return to their families.

That outcome should make us grateful. It should not make us comfortable.

There are two stories from Belleville that deserve to be remembered: the courage of a police officer who put his life on the line, and the possibility of a far more devastating outcome that never occurred.

We cannot say that police prevented a massacre. The evidence does not allow us to make that claim. But we should not need a massacre before we start asking harder questions about where the conditions around us may be heading.

This time, we got lucky. But even a cat only has nine lives. We should not assume that we do.

The title “A Cat Has Nine Lives. How Many Do We Have?” is stronger for an opinion blog than a literal Belleville headline because it creates curiosity before the reader knows precisely where you are going.