What do you want to see?
And some notes on our name and our mission

On the surface, it’s been a little quiet at The Zelman Partisans this week. Behind the scenes — not so! The gnomes of TZP (led by the amazing Jo Ann Alpert of the Missouri Bullet Company, one of our founders) have been busy prepping for our next advance.

‘Til now, we’ve been just a blog. Our next steps turn us into a “real” organization. To some, the updates we’re soon to unveil may seem minor. But trust me, as a step toward our long-term plan of carrying out the legacy of Aaron Zelman, they are huge.

Among other things, we’re developing TZP merchandise to help fund future projects and operations. We’ll start small, but with your help, we’ll build.

With that in mind, I’m asking: What types of merchandise would you like to see (and more important, what would you purchase)? Targets? Posters? Bumper stickers? Reader-friendly booklets? Wearables? Knives? Toss your ideas into comments. How much we’ll be able to do, and how soon, will depend on a lot of factors. But YOU can help point our thinking in the right direction. So have at it!

We’re already working on one cool item suggested by a reader. Then this week we received the delightful suggestion of TZP-logo kippot (yarmulkes) — an idea that would have brought a smile to Aaron’s face. Can you imagine the conversations those might start in Jewish communities?

Heck, personally I’m neither Jewish nor male (and who else has use for a kippah?), but if those became available, I’d buy one. Just because. 🙂

—–

Oh. And as I was writing this The Amazing Jo Ann already intro’d a couple of our new features. Take a look over there on the right, below the banners for our friends and supporters, Dragon Leatherworks and the Missouri Bullet Company. Check out our Queensboro store, which specializes in high-quality wearables with our nicely embroidered logo. Then visit our CafePress store, where you can get logo-printed items for yourself and even your best friend. (A store of our own is yet to come.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post …

—–

The same person who suggested TZP kippot — a business owner and long-time JPFO supporter — also expressed mild concern about us. Or specifically, our identity. He wrote:

It’s really a loss that JPFO went the way it did — the name told you everything you needed to know about the organization. Unfortunately, as important as it is to honor Aaron Zelman’s work and memory, “Zelman Partisans” requires explanation when talking to people who don’t know about JPFO’s (former) mission. I’m not sure what you can do, or what you’d even want to do, about the branding…

I agree that the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership was a wonderfully descriptive name. It was also so clunky that hardly anybody ever used it. One time when the freedomista columnist Vin Suprynowicz did use it, he was accused (seriously!) of being an anti-Semite for “making up” such a “ridiculous” group.

‘Cause everybody knows that all Jews loathe guns. Ptooey! And that is precisely the perception Aaron wanted to change — and so do we. He wanted to change that perception among Jews and Gentiles alike — and so do we.

The name “Zelman Partisans” does need explanation. But that gives us all the opportunity to open conversations. (“What? Why are there rifles crossed on that Star of David?”) Opening conversations can open eyes.

Besides, aside from honoring Aaron, I hope the name draws us together. Jews and friends of Jews, if we all understand that firearms are genocide-prevention tools and we’re willing to stand to protect gun rights as lifesaving civil rights, then we truly are partisans in the fighting sense of the word.

We are together in this. Outnumbered but undaunted. Outsiders united.

Powerful forces oppose us. Our resources are miniscule compared with those of our enemies. As partisans we come from diverse backgrounds and are driven together by need. We find each other in hardship. We join together in times that are increasingly perilous for Jews — and for freedom. We may not enjoy comfort and ease. But, always, the bold outlaw spirit of the partisan prevails.

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14 thoughts on “What do you want to see?
And some notes on our name and our mission”

  1. If you decide to sell coffee mugs, please make them
    more color-fast than the ones the national parks sell.

    I have a couple that faded after one or two trips through
    the dishwasher.

    1. Thanks for the comment, Nestor. Our CafePress store sells coffee mugs and their products have been pretty well time-tested. When we start creating items of our own, they’ll be things that can’t be gotten through third-party vendors like Queensboro and CafePress. Appreciate the suggestion, though.

  2. Thank you all for the work you are doing.
    I believe that the name Zelman Partisans is absolutely appropriate and should remain. Maybe a parenthetical sub-name would be illuminating (i.e., “The Jewish Freedom Organization” or, in a more direct reference/tribute to the Warsaw ghetto resistance group, “The Jewish Fighting Organization.”). But not as a substitute for TZP nor the current sub-heading of this site.

    Although I am not actively participating in your project (hope I can, though) and in no way a religious scholar (and thus run the risk of writing a check with my mouth that my body can’t cash) I think a gun rights/individual rights/etc. “Freedom Haggadah” would be a great addition. This has been done before, for “civil rights” issues, for “environmental” issues, and I’m sure others. But there is absolutely no reason that educational haggadahs be the domain of the liberals who, ironically, invoke the holiday to destroy the message. Passover is , of course, a celebration of resistance to tyranny. Same message as at TZP, same message (formerly) of JPFO, and certainly the same message as Aaron Zelman shouted from the rooftops.

    1. AmericanBTGoG — Great one! I’ll turn that suggestion over to our Y.B. ben Avraham. Whether it should be a product or simply an article/blog post I don’t know. But it’s interesting.

      MamaLiberty — I always loved those diamond quizzes, too (except when they phrased their gun-rights question as “Do you think the government should allow people to own guns” gnrrrrr.)

      1. This is something I originally intended to put in the blog post (re names that need explanation). I didn’t find a harmonious spot for it, but it’s actually the first thing that came to mind when that helpful reader made his comment.

        Back during the dot-com boom of the 1990s, business people rushed to snap up the first available generic URLs and used those as their company names and sometimes their brands. Drugstore.com, books.com, finance.com, auto.com, etc. Most infamously pets.com. Nice, understandable names. And where are they now? They either dramatically imploded or got disappeared into larger organizations with non-generic names. Some still operate but hardly as the leaders in their field. The most notable “successes” with those nice, easy-to-understand names were made by cybersquatters who grabbed the domains and held them for “ransom.”

        OTOH, look who survived and thrived:
        Amazon.com (books)
        Monster.com (jobs)
        Fool.com (finance; The Motley Fool)
        TheDailyBeast.com (news)
        Google.com (search)
        Yahoo.com (portal)
        PJMedia.com (conservative news; with PJ standing for “pajamas”)
        etc.

        More descriptive names have now come back, but while the newer names give an indication of what the site/company/app is about they’re still not exactly intuitive (Facebook, Instagram, StartPage, Whisper, Snapchat).

        Point being: Needing explanation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

        Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership had the virtue of clarity. But it didn’t “ring.”

        The Zelman Partisans has … charisma. 🙂

  3. “The name “Zelman Partisans” does need explanation.”

    Good place to start in the books, etc. department. Need to produce a brief, hard hitting leaflet or brochure that would explain the name, outline the goals of TZP and give an invitation to explore the site. The logo with a link could also be offered as a “banner” for websites and blogs to post.

    Years ago I bought a thousand of the “Diamond quiz” on a business size card from the Advocates for Self Government. Tucked them into letters, bills, lots of other places. I even slipped one into a lot of the library books checked out over the years. Only have a few left now.

    We seldom get much feedback on this sort of thing, but it seems worth doing, just to cast the seed into the wind. You never know where it will land, sprout and grow.

    I’d buy some of those from TZP.

  4. Just tried to buy an Eddie Bauer Long Sleeve Performance Fishing Shirt at your Queensboro Store and couldn’t make it happen.

    Maybe it is me but something ain’t clicking methinks. Will check back later to see if it is fixed.

    Also put me down for 4 TZP-logo kippot (yarmulkes) .

    A suggestion would be a flag or banner that one could put up at a fair booth or a campsite.

    1. Just made it happen for the Eddie Bauer Long Sleeve Performance Fishing Shirt at your Queensboro Store , happy camper now.

      1. Oh, Comrade X — I’m very sorry you had trouble, but THANK YOU. Aside from a few orders by us insiders, I think you may be our first.

        As to those yarmulkes, I’m really going to try to make that happen. None of the other TZP crew members have weighed in on whether they think it’s a good or bad idea. But with your four and my one, we’d be about 9% of the way toward the minimum required order for wholesale.

  5. Claire,
    I would like to see laser engraved Star of David medallions with the TZP monogram added. They could be round or dog-tag shaped. I would like to see stainless steel and sterling silver options. The laser engraving would reduce costs.
    I would wear it in honor of my Jewish stepfather and my mother, who converted (if Louis Armstrong could wear a Star of David, I can, too). They were both ardent RKBA supporters. My mother even gave a speech at a pro-gun rally in Detroit promoted by the late Mark Scott, who introduced me to the JPFO and Aaron Zelman on his talk radio show.
    I would also like to see a large yellow Star of David badge with a firearms prohibited symbol in the middle. This would be especially effective to wear during open-carry demonstrations. When asked about the badges, we could inform people that the Nazis instituted gun registration laws that were later used to disarm Jews and facilitate the Holocaust. And that Jews, forbidden to carry weapons of any kind, were forced to wear yellow badges, thus marking them as defenseless easy victims. I think this could be a way to indirectly associate gun control advocates really stand for.

  6. “Innocents Betrayed” might make a good sub-title, but guess you can’t use the phrase here – JPFO copyright, right?

    Maybe you could put out a booklet-with-brochure that explains the Zelman Partisans on the first 1-2 pages as it advertises/lists your products elsewhere.

    Re products: A strong, small (4-6”) Bowie-type fixed-blade knife to carry on belt or in boot top; could be used for anything, including last-gasp defense.

    1. Pat — actually, you can’t copyright a title, so we could “steal” JPFO titles all day. Won’t do it, most likely. But if somebody really wanted to be annoying, they could use all of someone else’s titles while attaching them to unrelated product.

      And some type of knife is definitely high up on the agenda.

  7. I like the idea of an embroidered yamulke. I’d wear one of those. I also like the idea of a TZP pin with the Star and crossed rifles underneath it, as I cannot wear my JPFO pin any longer.

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