“Love. That’s why I did it. Love as an action is more powerful than words, and love in the face of evil gives others hope. It demonstrates humanity. It reaffirms why we’re all here. The meaning of life is to give meaning to life, and love is the ultimate force that connects all living beings…” – Ari Mahler
Ari Mahler, Pittsburgh resident, nurse, and incidentally the son of a rabbi, was the caretaker for Robert D. Bowers, the man who massacred eleven and wounded seven at The Tree of Life Synagogue in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill on October 27. Mr. Mahler describes that only a few hours before he was assigned his new patient, he had been praying that his parents were not among the victims targeted at their place of worship. The words above, which were posted on his Facebook page a week later, are his. There is one thing all commentators in the media and politics seem to agree upon: we appear to be a country deeply divided, as we are split in roughly two sections by ideology and/or political partisanship.
But Ari’s words imply a different and far simpler truth: that there are those that love more and those that love far, far less. As of this date, his post has been shared more than 175,000 times. Just about a week after the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting came, the Thousand Oaks Bar Shooting happened. This was of course only a few days after the Florida Pipe Bomber mailings of October. We clearly live in a period where hate crimes are on the rise. The statistics relating to anti-Semitism are startling: The Anti-Defamation League reports a hike of 57 percent in 2017, the largest rise in a single year since 1979. A study from early last year by historians in the U.K. establish that “a new generation of internet-based [holocaust] deniers are on the rise,” most of them limited to right-wing or alt-right groups around the world, but mixed with even those with left-leaning beliefs that are anti-Zionist or anti-Israeli.
Robert D. Bowers is living in a society that gave him a large internet audience for his hateful words. This new generation of haters are groups that believe that at least part of their ideology is supported by the executive branch of our government. As a result of this shooting, most of us were introduced for the first time to Gab, a website that proclaims itself as a “free-speech” social media platform, but is the chosen venue for anti-Semites and other hate groups to proclaim their hatred. It’s only one among many digital destinations of its kind.
Coinciding with hate crimes is the rise of mass shootings. Aren’t all mass shootings acts of hate? To put this in perspective, let’s consider the definition of both. The FBI defines hate crimes on its website as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” However, it states, “Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties.” Mass shootings, on the other hand, include crimes that involve four or more people and exclude familicide, home intrusion murders and gang violence. So, mass shootings may include bias-based hate crimes, but also incidents that involve perpetrators that suffer from mental health issues. Now let’s list all the issues that must be considered in this awful equation of violence: the rise of hate groups (that includes the rise of racial, religious, and/or sexual-orientation biases among others), the political divide over gun control, and the lack of sufficient attention to mental illness. Attached to this is the spread of false information and conspiracy theories, fueling both hate and fear that has a firm grip on all three items listed above, and powerful lobbies such as that of the National Rifle Association (NRA) that have a lot of money to spend to defend their position, drowning the voice of democracy in the process.
I was among the group of people that walked out of my classroom in March this year to protest gun violence. I did not do this only because a brave group of teenagers in Florida reminded me that I could be an activist too, or I wanted people to stop using guns, but because like them, I was extremely afraid that some people were using guns, so easily available, for all the wrong reasons. I was suddenly reading about AR-15 type weapons that normal citizens may easily possess in some states far more easily than in others. Most of us remember being huddled in our classrooms not too long ago waiting for a lock-down to end. Our new reality must force us to do more, which at the very least involves knowing more, and carefully considering our sources for doing so. Let’s ask how and why and where hate groups exist. Let’s find new tools our generation can use to prevent the spread of false information. Let’s trust our fact-check websites and be sure they are in fact ones we may continue to trust. Let’s put our faith in research and science to always understand ‘why.’ Ask hunters why they hunt and about the joy it brings them without judging them beforehand. Ask whether our representatives are worried about the mass-sale of weapons. Let’s find out more about The Second Amendment—let’s refer to the arguments posted by Supreme Court justices on both sides in landmark cases so we understand that there are two sides, even at the Supreme Court level, seeing differently on how this constitutional law is understood. Let our opinions be informed by truth. If we do so, we may return eventually to Ari’s message of love.
There are fundraisers now to assist with victims from the recent shootings. Please consider going to those websites to help the victims financially, or learning more about them so that we may more deeply understand the impact these events have on individuals and their families. From the Wikipedia page of the Pittsburgh shooting: “Numerous fundraising efforts were launched to assist with medical bills and counseling for survivors of the shooting, burial of the victims, and repairs to the synagogue. As of November 1, a GoFundMe campaign initiated by an Iranian graduate student in Washington, D.C., had exceeded $1 million in donations. Muslim groups opened a LaunchGood crowdfunding campaign to help pay for the burial of the victims and survivors’ medical bills, with the funds to be distributed by the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. As of November 1, that campaign had drawn more than $225,000 in contributions. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh had raised more than $205,000 by October 29; donations to that organization will be matched by the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the Pittsburgh Foundation.