The Dire Inevitability of Anti-Semitism

"We simply cannot accept this violence as a normal part of American life."
"These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans."
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh

"I'm afraid to say that we may be at the beginning of what has happened to Europe, the consistent anti-Semitic attacks."
"If it is not nipped in the bud, I am afraid the worst is yet to come."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder, dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center

"It's a terrible, terrible thing what's going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done."
"The results are very devastating. [Had the temple] had some kind of protection, it could have been a much different situation."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"By the time I got there they [police officers and SWAT team] were already starting to extract people."
"Watching those officers  running into the dangers to remove people and get them to safety was unbelievable."
Chief Scott Schumbert, Pittsburgh police

Violence, despite Governor Wolf's stated assurances otherwise, is very much a part of American life, and it is becoming normalized within a society which politics has rent asunder and among whom bipartisanship has become increasingly viciously expressed and acted on. But this is not the dysfunction of mere politics, a topic that most people in society tend to disagree on, and usually with a modicum of discretionary remove. This is another sentiment altogether, a viral disease of the spirit that too often turns deadly as it did at the Tree of Life Synagogue early Saturday morning in Pittsburgh.

Just as the scourge of anti-Semitism has regained traction throughout Europe, it has gone beyond its usual foothold in the United States, home to the largest segment of diaspora Jews, second only to Israel itself. Just as anti-Semitism's volume was reduced following the Second World War and the devastation of the Holocaust entered the global conscience, it has risen in lock-step with the introduction into Europe and North America of Islamic populations from the Middle East and Africa bringing their own brand of heritage anti-Semitism with them to re-infect and retrench.

That brand re-ignited the remnants reduced to ashes to become the flames of a new anti-Semitism and it found a ready audience, more than eager to hold aloft the scorching hatred of Jews that remained alive within the old embers of anti-Semitism. The 46-year-old gunman who, carrying his weapons of choice against an unarmed congregation of elderly religionists was able to quickly kill eleven before the entrance of police. Police responded within a minute of the emergency call, the SWAT team arriving just as the killer emerged.

FBI agent Robert Jones, assigned to Pittsburgh, spoke of the atrocity that took place within the Tree of Life synagogue as the "most horrific crime scene" he had encountered in 22 years of service with the federal Bureau, where the innocent elderly, guilty of being Jews, were "brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith". Of course, because the assault took place in a synagogue, those Jews were targeted because of their faith. But not all Jews are religious; many more are secular Jews, and it is not their faith that distinguishes them for carnage, but their origins.

When a Jewish organization, HIAS, planned a sabbath ceremony for refugees in various places around the country, this venomous hater posted a link to the Jewish website, his caption reading: "Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among  us?" Then later added just as he planned the assault on the synagogue: "HIAS likes  bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I'm going in."

Primitive and deadly.

Rapid reaction SWAT members leave the scene of the mass shooting on Saturday