Seven Years Since the Pittsburgh Massacre

It is now seven years since the mass shooting at the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018, the worst mass murder in history of Jews on American soil.  Eleven Jews at prayer on a shabbat morning were killed and six others were injured as was the perpetrator himself.

We had hoped at the time that this was an isolated incident and not a precursor of a rise in antisemitism in the United States. But that was not to be.

In 2016, the year prior to the Pittsburgh attack, 684 anti-Jewish incidents in the US were reported according to the Anti-Defamation League. That was more than the rest of all religiously motivated hate crimes combined, records reveal.

Eight years later, in 2024, there were 9,354 incidents of antisemitic assault, harassment and vandalism across the country, exceeding any other annual tally for the previous 46 years. This was the fourth year in a row that antisemitic incidents increased and broke the previous all-time high. It was also the first time that incidents containing elements related to Israel or Zionism made up a majority of all incidents (58 percent of the total), according to the ADL.

The 12-month total for 2024 averaged more than 25 targeted anti-Jewish incidents in the US per day, more than one an hour, every hour of every day during the year.

Vladislav Khaykin, executive vice president of social impact and North American partnerships at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is quoted as having said: “The attack wasn’t only the deadliest act of antisemitic violence in American history,” but also “a wake-up call the world still hasn’t answered.”

He goes on to say: “It reminded us how centuries-old hatreds adapt to new platforms, new politics and new excuses,” he said. “Seven years later, we’re not just confronting antisemitism in the dark corners of the internet. It’s been repackaged as moral virtue in classrooms, on campuses and in cultural institutions that should know better.”

For those of us who are of the older generation and had the good fortune to grow up in America in the post World War II era, we thought that the bad days were behind us. That antisemitism, certainly the oldest hatred, had been flushed out with the rest of the detritus of that terrible war. Clearly, we were fooling ourselves. The hate remained as it simply went underground until it became socially acceptable to hate once again.

When Daniel Bernard, the French Ambassador to the United Kingdom said at a 2001 dinner party: “All the current troubles in the world are because of that shitty little country, Israel,” adding “Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?” it became OK, in refined circles, to pick on Israel and, perforce, the Jews as well, in a public manner.

Those who hate us were waiting, or so it seems, for the proper catalyst to come along that would further ignite their fervor. October 7^th’s invasion of Israel by Hamas and the resultant slaughter of over 1200 of our people accompanied by the taking of 251 hostages was all that was needed to kindle the flame. The cold-blooded murder of the largest number of Jews since the Holocaust and Israel’s defensive response, was seen by the haters as, de facto, permission to increase their antisemitism under the cover of criticizing Israel.

Have we learned anything from all of this? Sad to say, we have. We have learned that the cancer that is antisemitism, which defies all logic, is not a cancer that can be cured. It is a malignancy that can only be contained, sometimes better than others, but about which we need to be constantly vigilant.

While we can never fully eradicate antisemitism, we can take some solace in the fact that all of the civilizations that have worked so hard to destroy us have been destroyed themselves, while we survive. One can only conclude from this that the heavenly one has, in fact, protected us for these last 3,000+ years and thus be grateful for that gift. May we be worthy of its continuance and may the memories of the victims of this hatred be blessed.