We write today with deep sadness as an American Jew and an African American, respectively, the Executive Director and Civil Rights Attorney of the Philadelphia chapter of the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization. Both of us are quite familiar with the tragic history of our people and the protracted legacy of traumatic oppression exacted upon our respective communities.
An interfaith press conference about the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, hosted by CAIR-Philadelphia and Masjidullah at the Friends Center yesterday, received wide media coverage last night on radio, TV, and internet.
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious leaders at the press conference condemned the mass murder at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, as well as calling attention to the environment of racism, xenophobia, and calls to violence in which the anti-Semitic murders took place. Many speakers noted a climate of fear and divisiveness stoked by the irresponsible rhetoric of the president of the United States.
An interfaith group of religious leaders came together for a press conference Tuesday to denounce the mass shooting inside a Pittsburgh synagogue and President Donald Trump's latest attack on undocumented immigrants.
They said a prayer of mourning, at Friends Center in Center City, for the 11 men and women who were gunned down inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, calling out each of their names. The leaders represented area mosques, churches, and synagogues who called the massacre the direct result of a larger scheme of hate that began more than two years ago.
On Tuesday, October 30, 2018, clergy and leaders from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious communities will gather at the Friends Center for a press conference in reaction to the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
CAIR-Pennsylvania, the state affiliate of the Council on American Islamic Relations, denounced the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania earlier this morning.
As Jacob Bender, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director, emphasized in his recent “Director’s Desk” article “On Losing a Battle,” despite the waves of sad and angering events in our country, we are keeping our spirits up by channeling our energies to serve and empower the American Muslim community in these difficult times.
Many of our readers know that I was born into a Jewish immigrant home, my parents and grandparents having migrated to this country to escape the anti-Semitic persecution and poverty of Czarist Russia. This experience, as well as the commitment to justice that lies at the heart of Jewish tradition, contributed to my family’s engagement with social justice activism across four generations.
We believe the shooting death of Jeffery Dennis was an inexcusable homicide. It is our belief that the investigation presently conducted by the Attorney General’s office will arrive at a similar conclusion. Notwithstanding, some have attempted to justify the killing of Mr. Dennis by signaling he was the potential target of a police investigation at the time of his death.
If all goes according to plan — and that’s a big “if” given the unprecedented absurdism of the current presidential administration and its chief executive — this Thursday, a lonely woman will walk into Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in our nation’s capital to be questioned by, among others, a clique of white men determined to prove her a liar and destroy her reputation before the eyes of the world. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that the fate of American democracy may hinge upon how Dr. Christine Blasey Ford responds to her tormentors.
