Americans of conscience are reeling from a week of domestic terrorism targeting Jews, blacks, prominent Democrats, CNN and perceived enemies of President Donald Trump, and St. Louis leaders are trying to make sense of the horror and to offer hope.
On October 27, in the deadliest massacre of Jews in American history, 11 people were slaughtered in a synagogue in the heart of a 100-year-old Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh during a baby-naming ceremony.
On October 24, two African Americans were shot dead near a supermarket in Jefferson, Kentucky when the gunman reportedly was unable to enter a black church nearby, which was locked.
Throughout the week of October 22, a total of 14 pipe bombs were mailed to prominent Democrats and one media outlet that Trump repeatedly has attacked by name.
All suspects arrested in all of these acts of domestic terrorism were white men. One, the alleged pipe bomber, reportedly was driving a van plastered with images of Trump.
St. Louis leaders across the spectrum, both black and Jewish, are clear where to direct the blame – and for the need to remain strong and, above all, to vote on November 6, despite the hate and danger.
“This president is directly responsible for the recent rise in domestic terrorism,” said St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones. “He has consistently encouraged these attacks through his hateful rhetoric, both at campaign rallies and via social media.”
Rabbi Susan Talve – the founding rabbi of Central Reform Congregation, the only Jewish congregation located within the city limits of St. Louis – pointed to a text that many blacks and Jews hold sacred: the ancient Hebrew scripture.
“Pharaoh is a symbol of dangerous leadership. The root of his very name in Hebrew – divider –tells us why,” Talve said.
“As the great divider, his power depended on the anti-democratic principles of divide and conquer, of a society based on fear, on haves and have-nots where the haves are willing to do anything to hold on to what they think they have. When the leadership of our nation uses this playbook, we should not be surprised that we are in mourning, again.”
U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri), one of Trump’s most staunch opponents in Congress, called these recent acts of violence “a symptom of the vile disease that the president has inflamed by embracing intolerance, division, racism and hate.” Clay derided Trump as “a morally bankrupt leader who gives safe haven and credibility to the most toxic voices in this country.”
State Senator Jill Schupp (D-Creve Coeur) – one of two Jews in the Missouri Legislature and the only one on the November 6 ballot (in the 24th Senate District) – described these terrorist acts in the context of the racist, violent culture stoked by Trump.
“The rise of white nationalism, ignoring gun violence as a community health issue, the leadership that allows separation of parents from their children at our borders, incendiary remarks and name-calling, all create an environment that permits the unspeakable to become normalized,” Schupp said.
State Rep. Stacey Newman (D-Richmond Heights), a Jewish legislator who is term-limited, listed a wider range of victims of hate crimes than those targeted last week.
“Not one of us is protected as this president and his enablers promote anti-Semitism, Nazism, white supremacy, bigotry, transphobia, misogyny, Islamophobia and nationalism,” Newman said. “Thoughts and prayers by those in office are not action and do not keep any of us safe as uncontrolled hatred runs rampant.”
Adolphus M. Pruitt II, president of the St. Louis City NAACP, offered a public prayer to the victims at the Tree of Life Synagogue and traced the hate and violence back to a pivotal event in the Trump era.
“The same sort of hate was prevalent last year when white supremacists in Charlottesville invoked the classic imagery of Nazis racist terror with a torchlight march, chanting, ‘Jews will not replace us,’” Pruitt said.
Karen Aroesty, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, pointed out that the perpetrators of this hate and violence are not the terrorists that receive the Trump administration’s focus.
“We have been sharing information about the rise in anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-immigrant sentiments connected to white supremacists,” Aroesty said, “explaining that more than 70 percent of such incidents are due to the actions of domestic terrorists, and not the result of Islamist or ‘foreign’ terrorism.”
Local leaders agreed that the only response to hate and violence is unity in non-violent resistance and activism at the polls on November 6.
“We call on everyone to condemn these heinous acts and bring about a renewed commitment to civil discourse and to embrace our nation’s diversity,” said Michael P. McMillan, president and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.
Aroesty said she has been “uplifted by friends, colleagues and allies of all religions, races and ethnic backgrounds coming together to support each other, share sadness and commit to actions that will build community long after the haters are gone.”
Rabbi Talve admitted that she fears “the bullies and the growing violence,” yet holds onto hope – “hope that enough of us know that ‘nationalism’ is code for more division, that incivility breeds immorality, and that the outpouring of support for those who are targets of ignorance and hate will join together to overcome this wave of violence with learning and love.”
Schupp said these horrible events “call us to stand up, vote, call out the indignities and the hate rhetoric – to be the change that will bring humanity and goodness, acceptance and tolerance back to the public sphere.”
Newman offered a steely challenge.
“None of us should stand idly by, stand by in silence or of complicity against extremism and hate. We know exactly who encouraged and propelled the gunman to act with hatred. We know who the enablers are and exactly who still remain silent,” Newman said.
“Even though none of us are safe, we know what we must do, particularly on Tuesday, November 6. We know that enablers cannot remain in office and that our lives are dependent on state legislatures and Congress standing up to bullies and the rise of toxic domestic right-wing white extremism.”
