Federal Judge Lets Orthodox Synagogue Members in Silver Spring Carry Inside, but Not on the Shabbat Walk to Get There

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SILVER SPRING, MD — Members of the Silver Spring Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue in Montgomery County, can carry firearms inside their building but still cannot carry them on the walk there. On Tuesday, Oct. 27, U.S. District Judge Deborah Chasanow of the District of Maryland refused to undo that split. She rejected the synagogue’s request to reconsider and to block the county’s firearm restrictions within 100 yards of places of public assembly, including private houses of worship.

In August I covered the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Montgomery County over those same 100-yard buffer zones, and the synagogue’s own First and Second Amendment challenge was already underway. What is new, as reported by JNS, is where the judge drew the line for Shabbat-observant congregants. They can be armed inside the building, which also houses a school. They cannot be armed on the walk in.

A request to reconsider asks a judge to take a second look at her own earlier decision. Asking her to block the restriction meant asking for a court order stopping the county from enforcing it. She said no to both.

The court’s opinion was not available for this article. The account of the ruling here rests on JNS’s reporting and on the description given by Jacob Huebert, senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance and an attorney for the synagogue, who speaks for a party to the case.

According to JNS, Chasanow wrote that the plaintiffs established two religious obligations. The first is to defend themselves while in synagogue, and therefore to carry their guns there. The second is to walk to synagogue on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. But JNS reports she ruled they did not establish a religious mandate to make that walk while armed.

“Although they can theoretically have firearms at the synagogue, they cannot carry them there when they walk on the days when they have to walk there,” Huebert told JNS.

The county’s rule includes an exemption that lets people in vehicles have their guns within 100 yards of places of public assembly. The synagogue argued that exemption discriminates against Shabbat-observant Jews. According to JNS, the judge rejected that argument too.

“Most other religions that I know of don’t require you to walk to the place of worship on the days when you go there to worship,” Huebert told JNS. “So this law doesn’t affect their ability to carry a firearm to their place of worship and have it there, because they can drive there.”

That is the practical problem. A congregant who drives in can keep the gun. A congregant who walks in on Shabbat, because his faith requires it, cannot.

“But since these people have to walk, they’re not able to fulfill their religious obligation to defend themselves and other members of the synagogue,” Huebert said. He added that the obligation does not stop at the synagogue grounds. “If you’re walking to the synagogue with your family, and you’re out and about, you have the same obligation and at least as much need, because you’re out in public,” he told JNS.

JNS points to attacks on Jews outside Jewish institutions and in public as the backdrop:

• Two Israeli embassy employees murdered outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C., in 2025.
• A Jewish woman murdered during a march for Israeli hostages in Colorado in 2025.
• A Jewish man stabbed in the chest outside a Manhattan synagogue in 2026.

A defensive mindset does not switch on at the front door. The walk is public ground, and the attacks JNS lists happened on public ground. Under this ruling, the gun is allowed inside the building and barred from the street leading to it. That covers the people while they are behind walls and leaves them unarmed in the stretch where they have the least control.

More from USA Carry:

• DOJ Sues Montgomery County Over 100-Yard Gun-Free Buffer Zones That Make It Almost Impossible to Legally Carry Down the Street – USA Carry
• Federal Judge Lets Out-of-State Gun Owners’ Challenge to Massachusetts Carry Permit Delays Proceed, Tosses Facial Claim
• Federal Judge Rejects DOJ Attempt to Limit USPS Gun Ban Ruling, Expands Protection to SAF and FPC Members
• Federal Judge Orders California to Accept Nonresident Concealed Carry Permit Applications from Pro-Gun Group Members
• Court Declares Gun Ban Unconstitutional—Then Demands Names of Pro-2A Group Members

Menashe Shapiro, a congregant and plaintiff, told JNS the county’s law “unfairly and unduly burdens Jewish religious firearms carriers” and violates both the First and Second Amendments. Per JNS, Montgomery County is home to about 45% of the Jews in Maryland.

I will continue tracking the Silver Spring Jewish Center’s challenge and the broader fight over Montgomery County’s 100-yard zones.

Read the original story: Federal Judge Lets Orthodox Synagogue Members in Silver Spring Carry Inside, but Not on the Shabbat Walk to Get There