On Saturday morning in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, 46-year-old Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life Synagogue and shot and killed 11 worshippers and injured six others, including four police officers. A criminal complaint filed in the case says that as Bowers surrendered to police, he said he had “wanted all Jews to die” and that Jews were “committing genocide against his people.” The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
The horrifying massacre reverberated across a nation all too prone to mass shootings, and one in which 2017 saw the highest recorded single-year increase in anti-Semitic incidents (including vandalism, harassment or assault), according to the Anti-Defamation League. That includes a 182 percent spike in anti-Semitic incidents during the month after the white nationalist rally and riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.