Murdered Because They Were Jewish

Reflecting on Two Types of Death and Mourning

While much of the Jewish world has just marked the first memorial day for the late Rabbi Lord Sacks, in the US mourners have also focused on the third anniversary of the Sabbath morning massacre at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue.

There, on 27 October 2018, eleven mostly elderly worshippers were scythed at a stroke by a white supremacist gunman in an act described as America’s ‘deadliest antisemitic attack’.

In Karmiel, Galilee where I have lived since 2010, the outrage affected citizens personally as the two cities are municipal ‘twins’ and during the week following the shooting, the local Kehilat Hakerem Masorti Congregation hosted members of Congregation Beth Shalom, a sister Pittsburgh Conservative community to Tree of Life, during a pre-planned trip to Israel.

A memorial avenue of trees was swiftly planted in Karmiel to mark what happened in Pittsburgh. So it is upsetting to note that first, the trial of alleged mass murderer, Robert G. Bowers is nowhere in sight and second, that rebuilding work has not yet started at the site, although it is used by three separate congregations.

Meanwhile, attacks on US Jewry have not only continued but fairly exploded.

Why?

For no single reason but a multitude of causes that may be distilled as a dripfeed of pure hate . Indeed, as Rabbi Sacks may have asked: Who needs an excuse to spread the eternal ‘mutating virus’?

No-one.

It’s lasted longer than any physical plague. That’s for sure.

NATALIE WOOD

28 OCTOBER 2021