Attempt at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018

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In the attack in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in the US state of Pennsylvania on October 27, 2018 Robert Bowers shot eleven people and wounded six, including four policemen. It was the single most serious act of anti-Semitic violence in United States history to date .

prehistory

The most serious anti-Semitic crimes in the United States prior to the Pittsburgh assassination in 1984 were the murder of a family of four believed to be Jewish in Seattle and the attack by a White Supremacist on people standing outside a Jewish community center in Kansas City Year 2014 in which three people died.

Anti-Semitic attacks in the US increased 57% in 2017 compared to the previous year. This was the highest increase in a year since the Anti-Defamation League began recording these acts separately in 1979.

attack

background

The Tree of Life Synagogue is located in Pittsburgh's Jewish neighborhood, Squirrel Hill , near Carnegie Mellon University . The church was built in 1946; the community belongs to Conservative Judaism . The synagogue is a sprawling building. The reconstructionist Dor Hadash congregation had also been based here since 2010 , and the conservative New Light congregation has held services in the basement since 2017 . So on this Sabbath morning three services took place in different rooms.

Sequence of events

A Sabbath morning service began at 9.45 a.m. local time , as well as a circumcision ( Bris ) ceremony. At 9:54 a.m. the police were called because an assassin who was shooting had broken into the synagogue. Before the 46-year-old shooter opened fire with an AR-15 and three Glock .357 handguns, witnesses said he shouted “All Jews must die!”. The fatal shots were fired before the police arrived.

20 minutes later, the assassin was stopped by a police officer while leaving the building. The assassin shot him down and then withdrew to the synagogue to hide from the incoming emergency services, including a SWAT team. The two police officers who were the first to arrive at the scene of the crime were gunned down by the assassin, and two other officers inside the building. The assassin himself was hit several times during the exchange of fire. He barricaded himself in a room on the third floor, but eventually surrendered to the police. He was admitted to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, his condition was stable according to the authorities.

The attack is classified as hate crime . It is the deadliest single attack on Jews in the history of the United States of America.

Victim

Eleven people were killed and six injured in the attack, including four police officers. As the spokesman for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center told NBC on the same day , a 70-year-old synagogue visitor and a 55-year-old police officer were still in mortal danger.

List of victims

Memorial plaques in front of the Tree of Life Synagogue

The age of the eleven fatalities is between 54 and 97 years. They come from all three worship groups that had gathered in the synagogue that morning and were mostly from the synagogue's minyan people , who come not only on Shabbat , but also during the week, around the quorum of ten or more - in religious terms Meaning - to provide mature Jews, which is a prerequisite for being able to hold a full Jewish worship service.

  • Joyce Fienberg, 75
  • Richard Gottfried, 65
  • Rose Mallinger, 97
  • Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
  • Cecil Rosenthal, 59
  • David Rosenthal, 54, brother of Cecil
  • Bernice Simon, 84
  • Sylvan Simon, 86, husband of Bernice
  • Daniel Stein, 71
  • Melvin Wax, 88
  • Irving Younger, 69

The mass media published a list of those killed with their biographies.

Suspect

Governor Tom Wolf speaks about the attack

Police arrested 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers from Pittsburgh as a suspect. Bowers' parents separated when he was one year old. According to media reports, his father Randall Bowers committed with 26 years of suicide after he was found by police in the rape of a 20-year-old woman and charged with this act. Robert Bowers' mother remarried after separating from his father, but the marriage was divorced after a year. Bower's mother then moved in with her parents, who also raised their son after his mother had health problems. Robert Bowers attended Baldwin High School from August 1986 to November 1989, which he left without a degree at the age of 17. He then worked as a truck driver. Neighbors described Bowers as a "ghost" who barely communicated with others and was rarely at home.

According to local authorities, Bowers owned 21 weapons that were registered in his name.

According to the FBI, Bowers allegedly made various anti-Semitic statements on social media. His contributions particularly focused on the support of refugees in the USA through Jewish organizations. Hours before the attack, Bowers is said to have made the following contribution to the short message service Gab : I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in ("I can't sit around and watch my people get slaughtered. Fuck the image, I'll go in"). Bowers had his Gab-user account called on the profile page Jews as "children of Satan" and a photo with the number 1488 added one at White supremacists and neo-Nazis popular allusion to the fourteen words of David Lane and the Hitler salute .

The trial began in the Pittsburgh District Court on October 31. The defendant is charged with 29 federal offenses, such as the hate crime of obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs, and a further 30 offenses at the state level, including eleven murders ("criminal homicide") and six dangerous bodily harm (" aggravated assault ”). As expected, the defendant initially pleaded “not guilty”. He is currently facing the death penalty , which the prosecution says is being pursued, or a 535-year prison sentence.

Reactions and consequences

Mourning in Pittsburgh

That evening, hundreds of Pittsburgh residents gathered in Squirrel Hill for three interfaith vigils to mourn the dead and pray for the wounded.

Access to the Carnegie Mellon University campus has been cordoned off. President Donald Trump, as well as the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Wolf and his party colleagues John Fetterman and Bill Peduto, Mayors of Pittsburgh , condemned the attack on Twitter . President Trump expressed the view that the attack could have been avoided if the synagogue had been under armed police protection. A former president of the affected community replied that the building was protected by the police on the high holidays , but not for the rest of the year. In addition, Trump assigned the reporting in the media to some of the responsibility and described the fake news media as "the real enemy of the people ".

In the weekly magazine tachles, Andreas Mink expressed the view that a "factually completely unfounded hysteria" fueled by Trump and the right-wing media about the allegedly criminals and Middle Eastern terrorists infected with infectious diseases, the migration route from Central America that wanted to invade the United States could be the perpetrator have taken action.

James S. Robbins, however, suspects in his comment in USA Today that the alleged perpetrator despised Trump and considered Trump not a nationalist , but a globalist controlled by a "Jewish conspiracy" . Because of Trump's generous donations to Jewish welfare organizations, his award from the Jewish National Fund and longstanding relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and his decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem , Robbins believes it is factual and morally wrong to establish a connection between Trump and To create anti-Semitism.

By order of President Trump, all US flags were hoisted at half-mast from October 27 to October 31 . Protests broke out in the context of his condolence visit to Pittsburgh.

Three Jewish doctors and nurses saved the life of the assassin Robert Bowers after his admission to Allegheny General Hospital, including the intensive care nurse Ari Mahler, who, however, did not tell the perpetrator that he was a Jew. He explained his commitment with the words: "The best way to honor his victims seemed to me to show him as a Jew that he was wrong".

After anti-Semitic graffiti at Union Temple , a synagogue in Brooklyn , on November 1, an event scheduled for the same evening in the community rooms with comedian Ilana Glazer was canceled.

Web links

Commons : Pittsburgh synagogue shooting  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 'Deadliest Attack on Jewish Community in US History': Jewish Leaders Lament Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting 'It is unfathomable that in the United States of America, Jews or any one else should have to live in fear of being targeted simply because of who they are and where they choose to worship, 'says World Jewish Congress president Judy Maltz. Haaretz , October 27, 2018.
  2. ↑ The Shabbat massacre. Retrieved August 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Campbell Robertson, Christopher Mele, Sabrina Tavernise: 11 Killed in Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre; Suspect Charged With 29 Counts. In: The New York Times. October 27, 2018, accessed October 28, 2018 .
  4. ^ A b Johanna Bruckner, New York: Security has become fragile for America's Jews . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2018, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on October 28, 2018]).
  5. ^ A b c Campbell Robertson, Christopher Mele, Sabrina Tavernise: 11 Killed in Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre; Suspect Charged With 29 Counts. In: The New York Times. October 27, 2018, accessed October 28, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Lee Chottiner: Tree of Life, Or L'Simcha vote to merge into 1 congregation . In: Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle . June 30, 2010. Retrieved October 27, 2018.
  7. ^ New Light Marches Torah From Old Synagogue To New Home (video) . In: CBS Pittsburgh . November 13, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
  8. ↑ CNN: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting leaves 11 dead, 6 injured . October 27, 2018. Retrieved October 28, 2018.
  9. ↑ a b c Kalhan Rosenblatt, Tom Winter, Jonathan Dienst: 11 dead in shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue, suspect in custody. In: NBC News. October 27, 2018, accessed October 28, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b Pittsburgh shooting: husband and wife and two brothers among 11 victims. In: The Guardian. October 28, 2018, accessed October 28, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Shots at the US synagogue: perpetrators shouted: "All Jews must die," then opened fire , bz-berlin.de , October 28, 2018
  12. ^ Judy Maltz: 'Deadliest Attack on Jewish Community in US History': Jewish Leaders Lament Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting . In: Haaretz . October 27, 2018 ( Haaretz.com [accessed October 31, 2018]).
  13. ^ A b Johanna Bruckner, New York: Security has become fragile for America's Jews . In: sueddeutsche.de . 2018, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed on October 28, 2018]).
  14. ^ Victims of Pittsburgh attack named . In: BBC News . October 28, 2018 ( bbc.com [accessed October 28, 2018]).
  15. ↑ Ayala Goldmann, Gesa Ederberg, Mitten ins Herz , Jüdische Allgemeine, November 1, 2018. Accessed November 5, 2018.
  16. ↑ Pittsburgh shooting: Who are the victims? In: BBC News . October 28, 2018 ( bbc.com [accessed October 28, 2018]).
  17. ↑ a b As questions linger about Pittsburgh suspect, details emerge from his early life. The Washington Post, November 2, 2018, accessed December 8, 2018 .
  18. ↑ Man Said to Be Pittsburgh Suspect's Father Killed Himself Amid 1979 Rape Case. The New York Times, November 2, 2018, accessed December 8, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Pittsburgh Post Gazette , Nov. 1, 2018
  20. ↑ Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre Suspect Was 'Pretty Much a Ghost'. The New York Times, October 28, 2018, accessed December 8, 2018 .
  21. ^ Authorities name the 11 killed in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Retrieved October 28, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Lois Beckett: Pittsburgh shooting: suspect railed against Jews and Muslims on site used by 'alt-right' . In: The Guardian . (English, theguardian.com [accessed October 28, 2018]).
  23. ^ Campbell Robertson, Christopher Mele & Sabrina Tavernise: 11 Killed in Pittsburgh Massacre; Suspect Charged With 29 Counts . New York Times Online, October 27, 2018; accessed October 28, 2018
  24. ↑ Campbell Robertson, Sabrina Tavernise & Matthew Haag: Pittsburgh Shooting Suspect to Face Court; Prosecutors Vow to Pursue Death Penalty . New York Times Online, October 29, 2018; accessed October 29, 2018.
  25. ↑ Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect indicted on federal hate crime charges, faces 535 years Doha Madani in: NBC News , October 31, 2018, accessed November 2, 2018
  26. ↑ Caroline Kelly, Ray Sanchez, Liz Stark: Trump says Pittsburgh synagogue should have had armed guards . CNN, October 27, 2018.
  27. ↑ Team Trump's Game Plan Following Synagogue Slaughter Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein, in The Daily Beast , October 29, 2018.
  28. ^ Andreas Mink: Choice of Destiny in America , tachles, November 2, 2018
  29. ↑ James S. Robbins: Synagogue shooter hated Donald Trump and shows what real hatred, anti-Semitism looks like , USA Today, October 29, 2018.
  30. ↑ President Trump orders all US flags be flown at half-staff The Jerusalem Post , October 28, 2018
  31. ^ After the attack on Jews, protest march against Trump's condolence visit in Pittsburgh , Handelsblatt October 31, 2018
  32. ↑ Solidarity and Compassion , Jüdische Allgemeine, November 8, 2018. Accessed November 20, 2018.
  33. ^ Ilana Glazer Event at Synagogue Is Canceled After Anti-Semitic Graffiti Is Found William K. Rashbaum and Ali Winston in: The New York Times , November 2, 2018

Coordinates: 40 ° 26 ′ 37 "  N , 79 ° 55 ′ 17"  W.