Mass Shooting At Pittsburgh Synagogue

[dairyfreelife]

Another mass shooting today, this time at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a former resident of the city, I have passed by the area many times. There's a lot of Synagogues in the area. This shooting is closer to home for me than any other shooting except Virginia Tech. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46002549 

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/10/27/heavy-police-presence-near-synagogue-in-squirrel-hill/ 

[apandaaries]

So terrifying and sad.  All of Dumpster's rhetoric is becoming reality -- pipe bombs, synagogue attacks.  I don't even want to know what happens next. 

There are no words.  I'm so sorry for all of us, watching our country devolve like this, but especially those who saw their house of worship turned into a mass shooting scene. Horrific. 

Also -- EIGHT dead and THREE cops shot, but they still managed to get the white shooter out alive.  Wow.  It's like police can go into dangerous situations and NOT kill people...when they want to.

[Rachel333]

The shooter was anti-Trump (Trump wasn't racist enough for the shooter) so Trump is all over this one. He just said that the shooting wouldn't have happened if the synagogue had guns inside.

 

[candygirl200413]

So this really hits very hard to home because I live in a predominately Jewish area. I am just hurting for the community right now because they just wanted to celebrate a bris as a child was recently born. It's disgusting that orange fuck face will and won't do anything about this too. Will it ever end?

[Carol]

I am reminded of those marching in Charlottesville last year, holding tiki torches and chanting, "Jews will not replace us!".  After an innocent woman was killed when intentionally struck by a car, Trump said there were "good people" on both sides of the riot. I don't give a good goddamn if this latest mass murderer wasn't a Trump supporter, Trump's rhetoric is bringing racial, sexual and gender animus to the forefront and explicitly giving these people permission to comment heinous crimes.

I live 2 blocks from a large Catholic Church, I'm betting they've hired security for all of their services for the near future.

[Vivi_music]

55 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

The shooter was anti-Trump (Trump wasn't racist enough for the shooter) so Trump is all over this one. He just said that the shooting wouldn't have happened if the synagogue had guns inside.

 

Thanks for posting this. My anger reaction is just from Orangedumpface's comments.

It just makes my blood boil! ? Of course, a place of worship will arm themselves with gun? Is he even serious? I. Can't. Even.

I have no words. What an horrible thing to happen for those people trying to celebrate the birth of a little human being. They are in my thoughts.

[JillyO]

Official death toll is up to ten, with two more in critical condition. And Trump is victim blaming them for not coming to their house of worship with AK-47s...

[AlwaysExcited]

I'm heartbroken and angry. Stay strong, USA. Resist and vote.

[PennySycamore]

@JillyO,  and dRumpf is calling for the death penalty for the perp, according to an email I just got from the National Coalitionto Abolish the Death Penalty.  Why does the fucking answer to everything in his world have to be more violence?

[fraurosena]

Deer Rufus weeps!  Who the fuck jokes about having a bad hair day when 10 people were just murdered?

 

And in case you don't know, attacking Elizabeth Warren is warranted just after a tragic shooting has occurred.

Oh, and let's throw in an anti-semitic dogwhistle out there while we're at it! Just for good measure, to emphasize what a narcissistic, sociopathic shit he is.

 

[PennySycamore]

@fraurosena:  HOLY SHIT!!  Everything the Great Orange Satan opens his mouth or tweets, he gives more evidence that he needs to be exiled somewhere.

Btw, Fuck the Indiana FFA for having that POS as a speaker.

[Rachel333]

I'm reading that the shooter was particularly angered by the caravan and believed that Jewish people were behind it. You know, the caravan that Trump won't stop talking about and using to stoke fear.

[TeaELSee]

I lived pretty close to where that happened in Squirrel Hill, (7 years ago) the synagogue is in North Squirrel Hill and its a beautiful neighborhood. Squirrel Hill has a lot of synagogues so it certainly would be a target for a neo nazi.

[Shadoewolf]

Reporting 11 dead now and President Cheeto is saying if the synagogue had armed guards it might have helped. Except that 2 officers initially on scene and 2 SWAT officers were shot and injured trying to apprehend the guy . So the whole good guys with guns can take out bad guys with guns argument is kind of ridiculous.

[adidas]

Every time I walk past synagogues here there are armed gunmen outside while people are inside - I didn’t realise this didn’t happen everywhere and that it is an australian thing. Jewish schools have armed guards too (so do Islamic schools) because Australia is not a nice place for minorities to live. So while gun laws are very strict here, I can’t believe we have a model that trump is saying is good. It’s scary!

But I’m not a Jewish (or part of any minority) so I’ve refrained from judgement because I don’t live with the fear which has led to these measures being put in place.

(I’m talking about Sydney Australia just FYI)

An old news article:

https://amp.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/school-life/armed-guards-increasingly-common-in-australian-schools/news-story/cf6cf81bd9e2c6fba11f3409dbf86759

[KeshetParparNesicha]

I went to morning services at my local synagogue today. When I got there, everything was still normal. When I left, there were police cars parked outside, one at each entrance. Just a precaution, they said. No one could check the news until after the Sabbath, so we had no idea what was going on.

This is so sad. It never ends. I don't want to pray under guard.

[PennySycamore]

@KeshetParparNesicha,  I can't imagine how frightening that must have been to not know what had happened.  It also connects with something that several commenters had mentioned on a diary on DailyKos:  If Jews are not to carry things -not even their keys- on the Sabbath, how, pray tell, are they supposed to carry a gun?  Besides, the whole idea of people needing to be armed to go worship safely is just fucking offensive.  

[Black Aliss]

10 hours ago, apandaaries said:

Also -- EIGHT dead and THREE cops shot, but they still managed to get the white shooter out alive.  Wow.  It's like police can go into dangerous situations and NOT kill people...when they want to.

Oh, yeah. Remember they not only took Dylann Roof without harming him, they took him out to lunch before bringing him in to be booked!

[47of74]

I’m about to the point where if I could pack up and leave and never return I would in a heartbeat.

[Themanda Duggar]

I grew up in Squirrel Hill, just a few blocks away from Tree of Life.  Most of my family still lives there, though I don’t, we are Jews, and this is our community.  I know lots of people who belong to this congregation.  I’ve spent all day waiting to find out if any of them are dead, but I don’t think we’ll find out the names until tomorrow.  My parent’s next door neighbor tried to go there for services this morning, but he can’t walk very well, and was running late, and ended up going home when he couldn’t park close enough.  I bet this is the first time he’s ever been thankful for his physical limitations...

I hate that I’m not surprised by this.  It’s gotten increasingly scary to be a Jew in the US over the last few years, even a non practicing atheist one like me.  

Still, it’s surreal to see this kind of news story, and to see the houses where you used to play and babysit in the background, and the focus on a building where you (forcibly) attended bar mitzvahs.

[GeoBQn]

This has been a really difficult few days for me.  I am not connected to the Pittsburgh community (though I know people who are), but I work for a Jewish organization in my city and it was my job to keep putting out community wide e-mails about statements, updates, and info about our community vigil tonight.  It was gut-wrenching to watch my friends posting about their grief all day on Facebook, only to watch it start anew after sundown, when all of the Shabbat-observant Jews found out.

I was really close to throwing something into the wall when I read Trump's comments about armed guards, which many synagogues already have.  I was just on a Jewish mission trip to visit the community in Cuba, and for all of the challenges they face, the one thing they don't have to deal with is anti-semitism.  There are no armed guards in front of their buildings.

The shooter became enraged because of synagogues participating in World Refugee Shabbat, an event coordinated by Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS.  They began as an organization to help Jewish immigrants, but now they help immigrants and refugees of all origins.)  It was held the weekend of October 19th, the weekend we read the part of the Torah where G-d tells Abraham to leave his native land.  My husband and I went to the event at our synagogue, where we heard refugees in our area talk about their experiences.  A woman in the congregation is trying to form a "welcoming circle" for refugee families that are assigned to our city.

One of my friends e-mailed my organization asking if the vigil tonight is going to have police present.  While we haven't had any violence, an apartment complex in our area got spammed with Nazi flyers in mailboxes.  My friend says she doesn't want to go to the vigil if there won't be police there.

[PennySycamore]

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published a list of the names of those murdered at Tree of Life yesterday.

Here are the names of the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

[Lisafer]

11 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

Oh, yeah. Remember they not only took Dylann Roof without harming him, they took him out to lunch before bringing him in to be booked!

To be fair, I believe the police department went out and brought him a burger...he wasn't taken to Burger King or anything like that. And denial of food could have caused legal issues with the case. (I'm defending the police department's action here, not Roof--it goes without saying that he's a horrible excuse for a human).

[Themanda Duggar]

3 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency published a list of the names of those murdered at Tree of Life yesterday.

Here are the names of the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting

The Rosenthal brothers who were killed were my childhood neighbors, their sister and mine were very close friends.  They were both developmentally disabled, and were very sweet.  Cecil, the older of the two, spent so much time in synagogue with elderly people, mostly Eastern European immigrants, that he spoke with a Yiddish accent, even though he’d been born and raised in Pittsburgh.  David, his younger brother, was fascinated with the police and fire departments, and spent lots of time at the neighborhood police and fire substation, where he was treated like one of the guys.  That substation is only a couple blocks away from Tree of Life, and I imagine it was officers from there who were the first ones on scene.  I can’t imagine how painful it would have been for those officers to find David.

These two are the only ones I knew personally, my parents knew a couple of the others, too, and one of them was a friend of my grandmother’s.

May their memories always be a blessing.

[Lisafer]

2 hours ago, Themanda Duggar said:

The Rosenthal brothers who were killed were my childhood neighbors, their sister and mine were very close friends.  They were both developmentally disabled, and were very sweet.  Cecil, the older of the two, spent so much time in synagogue with elderly people, mostly Eastern European immigrants, that he spoke with a Yiddish accent, even though he’d been born and raised in Pittsburgh.  David, his younger brother, was fascinated with the police and fire departments, and spent lots of time at the neighborhood police and fire substation, where he was treated like one of the guys.  That substation is only a couple blocks away from Tree of Life, and I imagine it was officers from there who were the first ones on scene.  I can’t imagine how painful it would have been for those officers to find David.

These two are the only ones I knew personally, my parents knew a couple of the others, too, and one of them was a friend of my grandmother’s.

May their memories always be a blessing.

Very sorry for your loss. They sound like lovely people. ?