As far as anyone knows, Woody Allen is still alive and well. But the character of the woeful Jewish nerd he helped popularize isn't looking too good.

The latest evidence is a cover story in Friday's New York Post titled "Chosen Guns" about a rabbi in Queens who is training fellow congregants in the use of sidearms and self-defense so they can protect themselves against what he says are possible attacks from extremist Muslims likely to target synagogues during the upcoming High Holy Days.

"Jews are not like Christians," Rabbi Gary Moscowitz, who has a black belt in karate, told The Post. "If I turn my cheek, I'm coming around to make a kick."

That's not how Jews have been portrayed, but is the tide turning?

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PD toolbar!Looking at the marquee at the local cineplex and you might think so. The last few months have seen two movies, "Defiance" and "Inglourious Basterds," that feature tough Jews seeking vengeance against their oppressors -- in both cases, the Nazis. "I'm Jewish, and to me this was kosher porn, something that I fantasized about since I was a child," Eli Roth told reviewers at Cannes.

Roth plays the crazy, bat-wielding Sgt. Dony Donowitz, a.k.a. "The Bear Jew," in "Basterds," Quentin Tarantino's skull-bashing flick about a squad of vengeful American Jewish soldiers in WWII. Likewise, "Defiance" is based on the true-life story of the Bielski brothers, who lead a fearless band of Jewish partisans fighting Nazis in the forests of Poland. The lead is played by Daniel Craig -- the latest James Bond and nobody's schlemiel.

"We're living in some sort of golden age," J.J. Goldberg, editorial director at The Forward, a leading Jewish newspaper, wrote in a recent blog post titled, "James Bond, the Red Sox and the Mysterious Rise of the Hebrew Action Hero."

Even Jewish humor, that bastion of ethnic self-deprecation, is finding fodder in tough Jews, with movies like "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," the 2008 Adam Sandler vehicle about a Mossad agent turned Manhattan hair stylist, and the 2003 Blaxploitation-style send-up, "The Hebrew Hammer," featuring a Shaft-like Jewish action hero who saves Hanukkah from a plot by Santa Claus' evil son.

The gun-toting Rabbi Moscowitz, a former New York cop, is certainly no action hero. And security experts aren't amused by his bravado. "Blessed are the tight of lip, for they shall resist speaking ill of the ill-informed," an NYPD spokesman told the Post.

Paul Goldenberg, who heads Secure Community Network, which works with Jewish federations and agencies nationwide to improve safety for synagogues and Jewish centers, said, "That's not the way we deal with Jewish security." Goldenberg said SCN and the Jewish community work with law enforcement, and focus on education, vigilance, and information-sharing -- not arming congregants.

Still, Goldenberg said there is also a growing sense that American Jews are not going to wait around for an attack. "This community does not look at themselves as victims," he said. "We have taken responsibility for ourselves. Our message is quite clear: The American Jewish community is not an easy target."

Goldenberg said the two-fisted Jews in movies and the media are "representative of a shift in perception in the Jewish community."

In fact, the modern renaissance in Jewish grit can be traced to the birth of Israel in 1948, which was founded in hostile territory by a people that had been nearly exterminated a few years earlier. The legend grew with the success Jews had in creating a land of milk and honey out of the desert, and it was sealed in the popular imagination by the astonishing military victory of the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, as well as the 1976 Entebbe raid that rescued hostages off an Air France plane hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. That era was celebrated in the 2005 Steven Spielberg movie "Munich," a well-regarded film about the Mossad's patient campaign to assassinate the terrorists who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Some would also note that Jews earned their stripes in the tough arena of sports -- witness baseball greats Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax -- as well as crime. Journalist Rich Cohen titled his history of past Jewish organized crime figures "Tough Jews," pointing out that guys like Bugsy Siegel (played by Warren Beatty in the movie) and Meyer Lansky were regarded by many Jews as providing a rare and enviable tough-guy image. (A site called J-Grit.com has lists of what it says are legendary tough Jews from modern times, including rogues as well as heroes.)

In some respects, however, Jewish -- or at least Israeli -- prowess has taken a hit since the resurgent Palestinian intifada of 2002. That was followed by episodes like the 2006 battle in Lebanon against Hezbollah that was widely viewed as a failure for Israel, and the 2007 invasion of Gaza that left the Israeli army looking like the oppressor in the eyes of many. Recent books have even openly critiqued the "Jewish lobby" in America.

On the other hand, Jews continue to have real enemies, many right in the United States. "The past few months for the American Jewish community has been unprecedented," Goldenberg noted.

In January, a white supremacist in Massachusetts was arrested after a shooting spree and before he could target Jews and people of color, as he had planned. In May, authorities in New York arrested four men and charged them with planting bombs at two synagogues in the Bronx. While the devices were fakes, supplied by an FBI informant, and the suspects appeared clueless, the incidents unnerved the large Jewish community in New York. Also in May, a Jewish coed at Wesleyan University in Connecticut was shot to death by a suspect who had "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in his motel room and who had repeatedly said he wanted to kill Jews.

Then in June, an 88-year-old gunman who had long espoused virulently anti-Semitic views opened fire at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, fatally wounding a security guard before other officers shot and wounded him.

J.J. Goldberg of The Forward suggested that in the past the dominant Jewish attitude was a conflicted, almost paradoxical desire for both normalization in the American mainstream "coupled with an intense sense of victim resentment" over the Holocaust. But that is fading, he said.

"The myth of the gentle, harmless Jewish tailor, the nice guy who lives by his wits, has been passed along, but younger people resent it," Goldberg said. "They are fighting for a physical presence in the world as much as a spiritual one."

Hence Goldberg's recent paean to Jewish action heroes began with Kevin Youkilis, power hitter for the Boston Red Sox, and a Jew, who had recently charged the mound to mix it up with a Detroit Tigers pitcher after he was hit by a pitch for the second day in a row. Goldberg isn't even a baseball fan, but he and other Jews took note.

"One thing is for certain: The rebirth of Jewish swagger is having a real impact on the psyche of the American Jewish male," Goldberg said.


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