They Went To Worship: He Came To Kill

"[I would be honored to meet with any U.S. president.] I welcome him as an American. He is the president."

"Hate is not political. It is not blue or red, it’s not male or female, it doesn’t know any of those divisions. The hate rhetoric in our country is a real problem. I’ve seen examples in the last 24 hours. I chose to take the polite and respectful path. . . . Hate is all around us, and people are oblivious to it." "The hateful letters and e-mails about the president are just a renewed reminder of how divisive and painful this is."

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, survivor, Tree of Life Synagogue 

"We find strength in one another. This gunman went in to try and kill as many Jews as possible . . ."

"We will come through this. And hopefully this feeling of community that we all share today can be channeled into each of us doing our part of rooting out hate."

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D)

"The president is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren. His daughter is Jewish-American and his son-in-law is the descendant of Holocaust survivors."

"Tomorrow the president and first lady will travel to Pennsylvania to express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life/Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh, Monday, Oct. 29, 2018.    By Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 87
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69

A 46-year-old man who loved to hate and chose Jews as his very especial target armed himself with a deadly assortment of weapons, a Colt AR-15 rifle and three Glock .357 handguns during an attack on Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday morning, courageously shooting to death eleven elderly Jews engaged in prayer. Once he satisfied his blood-lust and felt his mission to deliver his message was done for the time being he decided to leave. But not just yet, since as he emerged from the synagogue, police officers and a SWAT team arrived, and he decided to re-enter the synagogue.

From the third floor he shot at police who were tasked with public security, not only to arrest his activities, restrain him and arrest and incarcerate him to allow the wheels of justice to begin turning toward a trial, but to evacuate the synagogue of its traumatized occupants, bringing them to safety. And then to assess the situation, where eleven people who had been communing with their God had been shot dead. In the process of confronting this heroic figure of anti-Semitic venom, four police were wounded and two other people as well, all taken to hospital.

One congregant, 90-year-old Joseph Charny, on the second floor of the synagogue. described afterward his experience -- hearing a loud bang from the floor below: "It sounded like some big thing falling over, like a coat rack", he said in an interview. In the pews alongside him, another six to eight worshippers sat, awaiting the arrival of the rabbi to begin the weekly services, all of them very well familiar to Mr. Charny. Suddenly the figure of a man appeared in the doorway and then gunshots rang out.

"I looked up and there were all these dead bodies", he said. "I wasn't in the mood to stay there", and he exited swiftly before any of the bullets could leave him as they had those he knew so well and would no longer speak with again. Concealing himself alongside the rabbi and his assistant in a storage room on the third floor, they heard bullets continuing to fire. "We all knew leaving too soon would have been our deaths. At first I felt numb, then thankful. I don't need to tell  you how terrible this has all been." But he survived that ordeal, his friends did not.

Everywhere that Jews congregate they are aware that they may be targeted. It is perhaps the more visible among congregants, Orthodox Jews, who see the obvious need for security. In the Reform synagogues, with their less visible presence, the attitude was more relaxed in the sense of normal disbelief that harm should come their way simply because they are Jews, and because they gathered in a house of worship to speak with God. It is, after all, inconceivable to most people that identifying themselves and their religious devotion represents a red flag of vitriolic hatred so deadly it could mean their death.

But it can and it does. And as Jews all over the world last Saturday gathered in synagogues and temples and any other type of normal social gathering became instantly alert to the atrocity that took place in Pittsburgh they knew it could have been where they were located. And it still can, any day of the week. They are Jews, after all, and from time immemorial Jew-haters and Jew-baiters have awaited their opportunity to muster the courage it would take to confront elderly Jews with lethal weapons.

And here in Canada, Jews are taking stock. "As a precaution [Saturday], police across the country signalled to us that they would immediately increase front line police presence in Jewish neighbourhoods and around Jewish community institutions which will likely continue for the next few days", announced Martin Sampson, vice-president of communications and marketing for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. "There is nothing whatsoever to indicate an increased security threat to Canadian Jews."

For the time being.

Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood following the shooting