On the morning of Saturday, October 27th, innocent synagogue goers were gunned down by an anti-Semitic shooter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Tree of Life community had gathered in their holy place to observe Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, along with celebrating a child’s birth through the ceremony of bris. The aggressor, identified as Robert D. Bowers, came into the synagogue armed with an AR-15-style rifle and several handguns, injuring six people, four being police officers, and killing eleven congregants. Bower fired for several minutes while yelling anti-Semitic slurs, before exchanging gunfire with police, and finally surrendering. Governor Tom Wolf said, “We simply cannot accept this violence as a normal part of American life,” at a press conference Saturday afternoon. This massacre has been labeled as the biggest attack on Jews in American history according to the Anti-Defamation League.
About a week after the horrific Pittsburgh shooting, a man opened fire in a Tallahassee yoga studio before turning the gun on himself. Scott Beierle, the accused shooter, shot six people, killing two of them, using a handgun. After Beierle entered the studio and loaded his gun in front of witnesses, many began to fight or desperately try to escape, pounding on windows and doors. One survivor, Kristen Jacobs, recalled to The Democrat, “I am alive because one guy in a yoga class in his bare feet ran at a shooter.” The two victims, Maura Binkley, 21, and Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, both had connections to Florida State University, Binkley being a student there and Van Vessem being a professor. Florida State president, John Thrasher, said in a statement to the Associated Press, “To lose one of our students and one of our faculty members in this tragic and violent way is just devastating to the Florida State University family.”
In an already cut throat election season, the stakes have seemingly risen in the wake of these two tragedies. After the anti-semitic attack in Pittsburgh, many accused President Trump of inciting the attack due to his hateful rhetoric. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, said to President Trump during Trump’s visit that, “Hate speech leads to hateful actions. Hate speech leads to what happened in my sanctuary, where seven of my congregants were slaughtered. I witnessed it with my eyes.” Many believe that after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, hate speech and hate crimes have risen. After Trump’s response to the extreme rightist protest in Charlottesville and the clashes that ensued between the two parties, it can be argued that bigotry is considered more acceptable in the United States of America. Trump’s anti-feminist and pro life rhetoric can also be considered an incentive for the yoga studio shooting in Tallahassee. Scott Beierle had previously been accused of harassing women in the area. He has also made several YouTube videos degrading women who refused to date him and condemning interracial relationships. These videos also contained several misogynistic rants, pointing towards why Beierle may have chosen to open fire in a yoga studio where primarily women would be. The increase in racism, misogyny, sexual assault, and bigotry in the nation can be linked to the hateful oratory many politicians have spewed in the past two years. Hopefully, people will push back against this hate and bigotry.Â
Sources:
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https://abcnews.go.com/US/funerals-11-synagogue-shooting-victims-begin-trump-heads/story?id=58846431
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/04/us/tallahassee-shooting-yoga-studio/index.html
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html