Synagogue shooting shows spread of anti-Semitism on the far right
Before opening fire on a synagogue full of people in Pittsburgh on Saturday, killing 11 and injuring six others, including four police officers, suspected gunman Robert Bowers reportedly yelled, “All Jews must die!”
The 48-year-old Bowers, who was taken into police custody after the shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue, is believed to have acted alone in what the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said is “likely the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.”
“It is simply unconscionable for Jews to be targeted during worship on a Sabbath morning, and unthinkable that it would happen in the United States of America in this day and age,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Saturday. “Unfortunately, this violent attack — the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the United States since 2014 — occurs at time when ADL has reported a historic increase in both anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Semitic online harassment.”
“Largely it has not been incidents of violence,” he said, adding that that is “one of the reasons we’re more shocked at this situation,” referring to Saturday’s shooting.
“We are ready and willing to work with law enforcement to see to it that justice is served,” they wrote, adding, “Gab unequivocally disavows and condemns all acts of terrorism and violence.”
The statement attempts to dispel negative perceptions of the Gab community, insisting that the social network’s “mission is very simple: to defend free expression and individual liberty online for all people.” But Bowers’s views are common on Gab. Many of the anti-Semitic posts found in Bowers’s archived feed had been reposted from the accounts of other Gab users.
The ADL study on anti-Semitism leading up to the 2018 midterms also suggested a link between the rise in such attacks and the election of President Trump. Prior to the 2016 election, “anti-Semitic harassment and attacks were rare and unexpected, even for Jewish Americans who were prominently situated in the public eye,” states the report. “Following his election, anti-Semitism has become normalized and harassment is a daily occurrence.”
One of the most frequently attacked individuals is George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who was among the targets of pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and members of the media earlier this week. A Florida man who identifies as a Trump supporter was arrested Friday in connection with the attempted bombings.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, are observant Jews.
“Once again, we’ve seen people … who are motivated by extremist ideas and ideologies willing to be engaged in violence,” said Beirich.
“We have way too much domestic terrorism emerging from white supremacists and far-right extremists,” she continued, adding that while “that’s been going on for a long time, it doesn’t help when Trump stokes these things.”
Trump has faced criticism for his response to the mailings of the pipe bombs, which were sent to high-profile critics of the president and frequent subjects of his own attacks.
After initially suggesting that Saturday’s deadly events could have been avoided “if they had some kind of a protection inside the temple,” Trump later struck a more sympathetic tone at the annual Future Farmers of America convention in Indianapolis, where he condemned the shootings as “pure evil” and referred to them as “an anti-Semitic act.”
“You wouldn’t think this would be possible in this day and age, but we just don’t seem to learn from the past,” he said, before launching into another denunciation of globalists.
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