Thousands protest Trump’s visit to Pittsburgh synagogue following mass shooting
By
Samuel Davidson
31 October 2018
Thousands of people took part in a protest on Tuesday against the visit of President Donald Trump to the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 congregants were murdered Saturday morning by a gunman driven by anti-immigrant racism and hatred of Jews.
A social media message by the gunman, Robert Bowers, posted shortly before he walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh and began shooting worshippers at Saturday morning services, made clear that he specifically targeted that synagogue because it participates in an organization helping refugees from Syria and Central America settle in the Pittsburgh area.
The worst ever anti-Semitic attack in US history followed a series of campaign speeches and tweets by Trump attacking the caravan of Central American immigrants heading to the US border as “invaders” and pledging to mobilize the US military to stop them. Trump has combined these fascistic incitements with denunciations of “globalists” and affirmations of his own “nationalism,” along with unsubstantiated charges that the billionaire Jewish Democratic Party backer George Soros is funding the caravan.
The overwhelming sentiment among the more than 5,000 residents of the largely Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood who marched on Tuesday, alongside students and opponents of anti-Semitism, racism and the government persecution of immigrants from many different ethnic and national backgrounds, was the conviction that Trump was politically responsible for inciting the murderous actions of Bowers, as well as the wave of mail bombs sent last week by Trump supporter…