A white male with a beard is in custody in Pittsburgh after killing 8 at the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Two police officers were also shot. Live coverage here.
Update: Three officers shot. The gunman was reportedly shouting “All Jews must die” as he fired.
Ohio Mom
Okay, I stand corrected and apologize for all the times I rolled my eyes at seeing a police officer stationed in front of my synagogue (which is every time it is open for services or religious school). I had considered it a bit paranoid but now I see I have misjudged things. It is not money better spent on other things.
dmsilev
Fuck. And it’s been what, two or three days since the last time a crazy white guy shot up a religious service attended by $OTHER?
glory b
This is near my neighborhood, I walk my dog in this neighborhood sometimes.
It’s called Squirrel Hill. A large Jewish population, conservative, Hassidic, reformed. Active business/retail/food scene.
geg6
Three cops shot. Two congregations use the synagogue and both had events this morning and were there. Eight dead and others shot but no info on injuries.
Very upset. Squirrel Hill is a beautiful neighborhood, very close to Pitt and CMU campuses. I spent a lot of time there when I was in college. There used to be a great record store/head shop called Heads Together on Murray Avenue, just down the street from the synagogue.
Saying it is a heavyset white mail with a beard.
MomSense
This is my dear friend’s synagogue. She is in Maine but her extended family are all there. We are devastated.
geg6
@glory b:
I thought I remembered you lived near there. Horrible, isn’t it? KDKA’s reporters are broken up. Some live in the neighborhood and some have colleagues who belong to the synagogue.
Now saying he came in shouting “All Jews must die.”
Mike in NC
Just another great day in MAGAland. Mass shootings are the new normal, not even front page news anymore.
Gonna be a great two weeks as the GOP turns up ratfucking efforts to 11. Fat Bastard has a rally today in Illinois. Expect a mention of “globalists”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mike in NC: Globalists who brought it on themselves. You forgot that last part.
JPL
@glory b: @geg6: Although this is a difficult situation for all of us, for you it has to be really difficult.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Makes you wonder what they, and the FBI, etc are picking up but not broadcasting to the general public, the way airport security is sometimes really tight and you may or may not find out why the next day.
GregB
Trump’s American Dystopia come to life.
Jr
Before the news tries to take this story over.
There are no lone wolves. There are always networks. There are always responsible parties. Find all of them, bring them all to justice.
smintheus
@Ohio Mom: A friend and colleague is a rabbi in liberal city in Pennsylvania. He tells me regularly about the threats their synagogue is receiving since Trump’s election. They’ve had to move their Torah to a safer location, they always have heavy security now, and once they were thinking of moving services to somewhere else because nazis were threatening a demonstration. The white supremecists’ viciousness is getting worse rather than better the longer Trump is in office.
frosty
My son just started his career as a Pittsburgh cop a year ago. This is the most worried I’ve been about him, but he’s not on shift right now. Terrible news for all the other friends and families of the victims. Fuck Trump and all the enablers of violence. And the FTFNYT for consistently getting the story wrong.
schrodingers_cat
@Jr: Its not random, either. It is directed by the President* against those he considers as the “other”.
Didn’t the FBI stop monitoring white nationalist groups recently?
geg6
AR15 and at least two handguns.
I hate these fucking people. Goddam it!
JPL
@geg6: 46 years old according to twitter.
glory b
@geg6: It’s a beautiful place, lots of wealthy people, some middle class, very diverse, both of my kids went to Taylor Allderdice High School, which is a few blocks away, considered one of the best public high schools in the US.
My family and friends frequent this area a lot. Pamela’s, the restaurant where the Obamas went for the famous pancakes, is located a few blocks away.
Tinare
Oh God. I grew up a few miles from there and attended a friend’s bat mitzvah there when I was a kid. I’m a Pittsburgher, I know a lot of folks in that neighborhood, I don’t know to which congregations they belong. I hate this country right now.
Brickley Paiste
On to the next shiny thing!!!
Miss Bianca
Words cannot even. I feel do much hopless grief and rage right now.
TaMara (HFG)
@geg6: You were my first thought when I heard this. Another horrible shooting.
@glory b: I am so sorry.
Ohio Mom
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Jewish community in Cincinnati has been fortifying itself for years now. For example, you can’t get into the Jewish Community Center for something as anodyne as a visiting author’s public lecture without signing in at a staffed desk and being buzzed through (what I assume is a bullet-proof glass) locked gate. I’m trying to remember when it all started. Way before Trump.
Mr Stagger Lee
I wonder how all those Trump supporters in Israel feel now? Surely they had to know of the chants during the Charlottesvile rallies.
chopper
@Ohio Mom:
many years ago i would always roll my eyes at the private security going to shul mostly cause they seemed like rent a cops. real cops were there on high holidays.
i just can’t with this shit. this yom kippur the rabbi talked about the scourge of white supremacy and it was powerful stuff. and timely.
ugh.
glory b
@JPL: I have quite a few friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood, my kids have lots of friends there too.
It’s a super safe place otherwise. If you notice the neighborhood on television, there are high six figure/million dollar homes there.
Very liberal area, peple with the same signs that J Cole has in his yard, people who still have Clinton for Pres signs.
West of the Rockies
I underestimated Trump. I thought him merely a crude buffoon. He is ever so much more and worse: a vile enabler, a source and conduit for rage. And his followers represent the worst of humanity.
mellowjohn
are the Trumphuckers claiming false flag or crisis actors yet?
David Anderson
Looking at Facebook check in and trying to think of which ofmy colleagues and friends who have not checked in are observant vs bacon cheeseburger Jews
Ruckus
@frosty:
In their eyes they don’t get the story wrong. This is the story they want to tell. They know who this president is, they like him, they like what he says.
Ohio Mom
@Mr Stagger Lee: The right-wing Jews I know are unpersuadable. They are incapable of seeing the connection between who they support and anti-semitism, let alone what “their” president has emboldened.
And yet, in my synagogue at least, we are urged to overlook other members’ right wing bents because somehow sharing the same religion and peoplehood trumps the fact that they are actively supporting horribly destructive policies. I wonder how long this charade can be kept up.
Mike in DC
Honestly, tv networks should refuse to run ads featuring George Soros or mentioning “globalism”. And there should be pressure brought to bear to get the GOP to pull them.
Ohio Mom
@chopper: Your rabbi is ahead of mone, see my comment at 31.
glory b
Synagouge officials said they have security on high holy days, but none for regular shabbat services.
Gin & Tonic
@Ohio Mom: Sheldon Adelson must be proud.
geg6
@glory b:
I’ve always loved Squirrel Hill. It used to be a great treat when my parents would take us once a year to Poli’s. Such a beautiful neighborhood. One of the most desirable in the city.
Ohio Mom
@Ohio Mom: It will be interesting to see how my adamantly nonpartisan rabbi addresses this morning’s terrorists. I’m expecting he will send an email to the congregation sometime this afternoon.
If you can’t tell, I’ve been long fed up with my immediate community’s reluctance to join the fray to save our country. I am concerned that too many will draw the wrong conclusions from today’s carnage and horror: they will double down on focusing on generic anti-semitism rather than on the growing fascism all around all of us, Jewish and not.
Tinare
@mellowjohn: Yes. They are. Deplorable was WAY too kind.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
It’s been going on a very long time now and not just in your religion. Belonging to a religion, being faithful is supposed to bring you together, to bond you as a whole, to remove your differences or make them insignificant. But you can’t accept everyone and their differences as one thing because of just belonging, it has to be because of actual beliefs.
This level of hate, this level of toxic stupidity and conservatism of this maladministration has the real possibility of destroying our government. It certainly is changing it for the worse and showing how toxic conservatism is to current life.
chopper
@mellowjohn:
waddya mean “yet”? as if they ever take a break from it.
Gvg
I wonder sometimes how Jared and Ivanka and his grand daughters feel about him using that globalist code word and the stuff he supports. It’s been awhile since we have heard much from them. I wonder if they are getting frightened, the adults. I feel sorry for the kids. We knew Trump was an unfit parent.
Actually what I have heard on the media has been kind of blunt. One commenter and Biden saying what needed to be said because of course Trump is incapable of it…the other guests agreeing and moving on. They have not forgotten Khashoggi and keep bringing up Trumps attack on the media in connection with the bombing. Sure that’s self centered, but it’s also correct and timely.
cthulhu
Is the NYT planning an article about how various Jews have said bad things about anti-Semites?
Ohio Mom
@Gvg: Maybe Jared and Ivanka think that being worried about antisemitism is for the little people, something they are above the fray of.
New thread on this subject above, BYW.
Wild Cat
@Gvg: I don’t wonder what those frauds are thinking. I wonder what 320,000,000 fascist, delusional, or apathetic meatbags in this shitty country aren’t thinking.
tobie
@Ohio Mom: There’s a direct link between attacks on African American churches and attacks on mosques and synagogues. If organizations like the ADL don’t have the courage to say this, then they’ve really lost all claim to being moral institutions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gvg: trump joshed with Gary Cohn that GC was a bit of a globalist at GC’s going away presser, and Cohn chuckled along with the rest of the room, and nodded like a bobblehead ten seconds later when trump suggested GC might even come back to the administration
Ian R
@David Anderson: Keep in mind that the observant ones won’t have checked in yet, because it’s the sabbath.
David Anderson
@Ian R:
Good point