By now, most Americans have heard about the massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh this past Saturday. Jewish World Watch (JWW) was created to monitor and call attention to mass atrocities and genocides worldwide. When most of our work is focused on countries in the Global South or areas of extreme ethnic or religious rivalries, we are somewhat taken aback when the newest atrocity on our radar is one that takes place at home. It’s a reminder that the specter of the Holocaust is always there and will always follow the Jewish peoples no matter how safe we may tell ourselves we are. It reminds us that the fight is not over — not for Jews, and not for the millions of people worldwide who face persecution daily on the basis of who they are.
We have come to think of genocide and mass atrocities as a problem that faraway lands must grapple with. We feel empathy because of our shared history of persecution and genocide. We give what we can and keep them in our prayers. We take for granted that these genocidal thoughts could be wielded against us where we live, where we pray, where our children go to school. But, the current climate in our country is not that different from the atmosphere in the autocratic, kleptocratic regimes where ethnic and religious tensions erupt into violence on a regular basis. We are living in a time steeped in vitriol and hatred; where the underbelly of society has received the green light to emerge from the depths and spew their animosity, without consequence. Hate speech has no only gone unchecked over the last few years; it has been sanctioned and amplified by the upper echelons of our government.
Just a few hours before opening fire, Robert Bowers posted this on social media network Gab: “HIAS likes to 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.” Jews, clearly, were not “our people” in Bowers’ twisted worldview. Perhaps not people at all. They could be slaughtered. He could not “sit by and watch,” and we shouldn’t either.
HIAS, of course, is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, an organization devoted to helping refugees and asylum seekers worldwide—an organization that has been instrumental in bringing Holocaust survivors, their families, and other persecuted Jewish communities to the United States for decades. Jewish World Watch is honored to call HIAS a cherished partner, with whom we’ve proudly worked on an array of projects throughout the years, including National Refugee Shabbat.
National Refugee Shabbat, intended to remind the Jewish people of the tens of millions of refugees in the world who continue to struggle in the very same way the Jewish people did when forced to flee their lands, seemed to be the last straw for Bowers. Weeks earlier, in response to National Refugee Shabbat, he wrote, “Open your Eyes! It’s the filthy EVIL jews Bringing the Filthy EVIL Muslims into the Country!!” His murderous intent was grounded in the fundamental Jewish values of helping the world’s most vulnerable, of using our history as a foundation for bringing light to the world and embracing otherness. He was essentially attacking the very reason for Jewish World Watch’s existence. We are not as safe as we thought.
So, what do we do about it, in a time when hate speech, xenophobia, nationalist tendencies, and inaction in the face of other’s bad behavior are becoming more prevalent every day? The answer is, we don’t stand idly by. We unify. We reach across religions and creeds. We fight harder to attack the structural causes of this hatred, not only at home but abroad. We recognize that the Yazidis of Iraq, the Muslims of Myanmar, the Darfuris of Sudan are our brothers and sisters, bonded to us by our shared experience of being targeted and exterminated because of who we are.
As a testament to our resilience and solidarity, synagogues across the United States were overflowing on Sunday. People did not barricade themselves in their homes, cringing in fear. They came out in droves to show that they will not stand idly by as their brethren are brutally attacked. We must harness this life force to demand change from our government officials, not only in regards to our domestic policies, but in our response toward the near 70 million people around the world displaced by the very same darkness that drove the Tatmadaw, the Janjaweed, the Islamic State, and Mr. Bowers to act. We will persevere and continue to shine our light, both inward and outward, together.