Jana Cholakovska, one of the co-directors of the Politics Society editorial, In the Zeitgeist, is a junior at NYU. She is a double major in Political Science and Journalism. She comes from the small South Eastern European country of Macedonia but hopes to work as an investigative journalist internationally. She spent the last summer working for New York Family Magazine. Outside of the classroom, Jana loves to read fiction, dance, and repetitively listen to music until her roommates are sick of it.
Pittsburgh Shooting: a Resurgence in Mainstream Anti-Semitism?
Photo courtesy of AP Photo
This past Saturday, October 27th, was regretfully immortalized as another tragic mass shooting in U.S. history. At 9:50 am gunman Robert Bowers opened fire during Shabbat service in the Tree of Life synagogue in the historic Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He killed 11 and injured six people. Among those murdered were siblings and spouses.
Bowers, 46, who wasn’t shy about expressing his anti-Semitic sentiments on Facebook, was charged with 29 criminal charges. According to relevant authorities, when Bowers encountered the SWAT team on his way out of the synagogue he said he “wanted all Jews to die” because they “were committing genocide against his people.” What exactly he was referring to here is unclear and quite frankly ludicrous.
Hate-crimes and mass shootings such as this one are unfortunately nothing new in the U.S. which has seen too many horrific scenes like the ones at Stoneman Douglas High School earlier this year. Although neo-Nazi sentiments have been openly and aggressively swirling around for a couple of years now, this shooting is believed to be the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history propelling anti-semitism into the mainstream.
While communities in Pittsburgh and all across the country mourned the victims, president Donald Trump offered his condolences and promised to visit the city.
Understandably, Jewish community leaders and Pittsburg mayor don’t want him there. The progressive Jewish group, Bend the Arc, expressed in an open letter that he is “not welcome in Pittsburgh until” he “fully denounces white nationalism,” and “stops targeting and endangering all minorities.”
This is the conversation we should be having. President Trump is the one who showed support for white supremacist protestors at the Charlottesville rally by saying there were “very fine people on both sides.” President Trump is the one who was shown outright support by the KKK for his alt-right rhetoric. President Trump is also the one who doesn’t get to be applauded for his condolences for violence against minorities. As it said in the open letter, although he called the gunman evil his “policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement” and are “the direct culmination” of his influence.
-Jana Cholakovska
