Saturday morning, on the 26th of October, a Nazi walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue, shouting “All Jews must die!” and opened fire. He killed eleven Jewish people, including grandparents, husbands, wives, and a doctor remembered for his compassionate care of his patients during the AIDs crisis. Several of them were there celebrating a baby-welcoming ceremony for a gay couple’s newly adopted twins.
This was the deadliest antisemitic attack in all 364 years of American Jewish history. Jews all over the world are shaken, upset, and scared. We know that this could have been any of us, but beyond that, this attack struck at the heart of our people. We were attacked in a place of safety and sanctity. We were reminded that as Jews, we are not safe in America. And we lost eleven Jewish souls.
Some of us are grieving, some of us are angry, some of us are devastated, some of us are numb, some of us are crying, some of us are terrified, some of us are anxious, and some of us can barely walk up the stairs because this doesn’t make any sense and yet it makes so much sense because we all, on some level, imagined this was coming. Our history has taught us that our safety is never guaranteed, and over the past two years we have watched the sickening rise of Nazism and antisemitism all over the world, including in America, where, despite our history, many of us had been lulled into believing it could never happen here.
We lost a third of the world’s Jewish population within living memory. So many Jewish families, in every country, fled antisemitic violence within the past few generations. The tragedy we just experienced is visceral, it’s terrifying, it’s devastating.
So please, check in on your Jewish friends and ask how they are doing. Please, take a moment to understand and absorb this tragedy. Please, understand how this is not just yet another mass shooting (that while theoretically tragic, you don’t really have the space for another one, what with compassion fatigue), but rather an attack that pierced the heart of a group of people already carrying centuries of pain and trauma. Please, make space for this one. Please, when you talk about this, don’t use generalized language about hate and about how no one should be killed for their religion. Please speak the words: Jewish. Antisemitic. Say this was an antisemitic attack, on Jewish people. And please, keep us in your thoughts today.
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