The rhythm of life
Loneliness in America
When in cold reflection, a man concludes that his life matters to no one but himself, how are we to imagine he might still retain or develop an appreciation for the value of the lives of others? It’s easy enough to characterize Robert Bowers’ deadly attack at a Pittsburgh synagogue as a product of hate-filled political discourse fueled by the inflammatory words of a cynically divisive president and yet that doesn’t account for the abject sadness of a man who…
As rich nations close the door on refugees, Uganda welcomes them
The New York Times reports: President Trump is vowing to send the military to stop migrants trudging from Central America. Europe’s leaders are paying African nations to block migrants from crossing the Mediterranean — and detaining the ones who make it in filthy, overcrowded camps. But Solomon Osakan has a very different approach in this era of rising xenophobia. From his uncluttered desk in northwest Uganda, he manages one of the largest concentrations of refugees anywhere in the world: more…
Thousands support Pittsburgh Jewish leaders calling on Trump to ‘denounce white nationalism’
The Washington Post reports: More than 16,000 people have signed an open letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish group who say the president will not be welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops “targeting” minorities after a mass shooting Saturday at a local synagogue left 11 dead. The letter, which was published and shared on Sunday, was written by 11 members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc, a national…
Muslim groups raise thousands for Pittsburgh synagogue shooting victims
The New York Times reports: Two Muslim organizations have raised more than $130,000 to help victims and their families following the shooting massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday. The online fund-raiser was part of a broad outpouring of assistance in response to the anti-Semitic attack, which killed 11 people and left six others injured, including blood drives, vigils and a separate crowdfunding campaign that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tarek El-Messidi, a Chicago-based…
Growing anti-Semitism stuns American Jews
The New York Times reports: Until recent years, many Jews in America believed that the worst of anti-Semitism was over there, in Europe, a vestige of the old country. American Jews were welcome in universities, country clubs and corporate boards that once excluded their grandparents. They married non-Jews, moved into mixed neighborhoods and by 2000, the first Jew ran for vice president on a major party ticket. So the massacre on Saturday of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, by…
Trump calls media the ‘true Enemy of the People’ the same day a bomb is sent to CNN
Vox reports: President Donald Trump is following through on his threat to take his rhetoric and “tone it up,” again upping his attacks on the media — even as calls arose across the country to turn down the temperature on divisiveness after a week of disturbing violence. A few hours later, another suspicious package, similar to the pipe bombs mailed out last week, was found addressed to CNN. The FBI is investigating. [Continue reading…]
‘The devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children’
The New York Times reports: The people who are closest to a thing are often the most wary of it. Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them. A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about…
U.S. Jews’ despair over Pittsburgh atrocity compounded by Trump’s complicity and Netanyahu’s hypocrisy
Chemi Shalev writes: When Trump said Saturday that the attack in Pittsburgh might not have been as bloody if the synagogue had hired armed guards, he was essentially blaming the Jewish victims for their own death; proving, in the process, how detached he is from the sentiments of the liberal Jewish majority, which abhors the unflinching Republican support for guns and their owners. Trump’s insensitive assertion proved to anyone who still harbored doubt that he is eminently unqualified to reassure…
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is a moment of reckoning for American Jews
Jay Michaelson writes: After the 9/11 attacks, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that countries now had to choose between fighting terror and abetting it, that there was no neutral ground. In his metaphor, you were either sitting in the smoking section, or the no-smoking section. In the wake of the worst attack on Jews in American history, all of us, but especially American Jews like me, face a similar decision. We either support Donald Trump and the movement of…
Why the Tree of Life shooter was fixated on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Masha Gessen writes: A couple of hours before opening fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, Robert Bowers, the suspected gunman, posted on the social 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.” HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and Bowers had posted about it at least once before. Two and a half weeks earlier, he had linked to a HIAS…
George Washington’s letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island
On August 18,1790, during his second year in office as America’s first president, George Washington wrote: If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people. The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a…
‘He felt that somebody was finally talking to him’: How the package-bomb suspect found inspiration in Trump
The Washington Post reports: The first thing that stood out about Cesar Sayoc was his vehicle. As far back as 2002, lawyer Ronald Lowy recalled, the windows of Sayoc’s white Dodge Ram van were covered in stickers of Native American regalia. Though Sayoc was Filipino and Italian, he claimed to be a proud member of the Seminole tribe, Lowy said. The lie was one of many Sayoc would spread about himself over the years. He falsely claimed to have worked…
Cesar Sayoc’s path on social media: From food photos to partisan fury
Kevin Roose writes: [B]efore Mr. Sayoc’s accounts were taken down [by Facebook and Twitter], The New York Times archived their contents. And a closer study of his online activity reveals the evolution of a political identity built on a foundation of false news and misinformation, and steeped in the insular culture of the right-wing media. For years, these platforms captured Mr. Sayoc’s attention with a steady flow of outrage and hyperpartisan clickbait and gave him a public venue to declare…
Trump’s incendiary rhetoric has emboldened Cesar Sayocs all over America
Michael D’Antonio writes: Trump campaigned using taunts and suggestions that all the Cesar Sayocs could have heard as calls to violent action. When a protester interrupted a rally, Trump announced that he would “like to punch him in the face” and waxed sentimental about the days when protesters would be “carried out on stretchers.” He referenced a “Second Amendment” response to Hillary Clinton’s possible election and offered to pay the legal bills for those who assault his protesters. Trump allies…
America’s #1 rabble-rouser
Rick Wilson writes: No one in American political life has even a fraction of his power to inspire behavior and action. No one. It’s time we recognize that Trump’s unique social media presence is a weapon of radicalization. No one else in the American political landscape stokes the resentments, fears, and prejudices of his base with equal power. Trump never misses a chance to miss a chance to be bigger and better. He never fails to close the door on…