The murder of eleven people during a Shabbos service this morning in a Pittsburgh synagogue is a horrific tragedy and an outrage. Our deepest sympathies go out to the mourning families and friends of the victims who were targeted because they were Jews. We extend our deepest gratitude to the law enforcement personnel who arrived at the scene and captured the murderer. We also thank law enforcement across the country who are ramping up security measures around houses of worship.
There are simply no words of condemnation that can truly express our anguish and disgust at the perpetrator of this hate-fueled act or others like it. Any platform or group, including those on social media, that serves to stir up and metastasize bigotry and anti-Semitic hatred, needs to be called out and shut down for incitement of violence. Until all Americans confront the horror of anti-Semitism head on, our great Democracy will not have achieved its promise.
May those who were injured in today’s senseless violence have a speedy and complete recovery from their wounds.
Gab.com – the social media site used by the murderer was taken down . It seems that while all social media sites have people writing extreme views, this was the most extreme of them all.
Gab said on Twitter that it had been “banned” over the past 24 hours by payment processing firms PayPal and Stripe, as well as hosting service Joyent and domain register GoDaddy.
They also said that they had worked with the DOJ & FBI to give over his account info which was useful in condemning him.