Pittsburgh synagogue shooter tended to by Jewish doctors and nurses, officials say
Pittsburgh synagogue shooter tended to by Jewish doctors and nurses, officials say
October 29, 2018
PITTSBURGH — Jewish doctors and nurses at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh put their personal feelings aside to help save the life of the man who allegedly claimed he wanted to “kill all the Jews” as he opened fire at a synagogue and murdered 11 worshipers.
Robert Bowers, 46, was shot multiple times himself and taken to AGH. In addition to killing eight men and three women, he wounded six other people, including four police officers, before surrendering Saturday.
“He was taken to my hospital and he’s shouting, ‘I want to kill all the Jews’,” Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, president of Allegheny General Hospital and a member of the Tree of Life Synagogue, told ABC. “The first three people who took care of him were Jewish.”
Another nurse, whose father is a rabbi, “came in from a mass casualty drill and took care of this gentleman.”
Cohen was one of the first people on the scene. He lives in the neighborhood and heard gunfire from his house.
“I was standing there…and you could start hearing very quickly what was going on,” he said.
Just like the first responders who rushed into danger, Cohen credits his doctors, nurses and staff for stepping up.
“We are here to take care of sick people. We’re not here to judge you. We’re not here to ask ‘Do you have insurance or do you not have insurance?’ We’re here to take care of people who need our help,” he said.
Cohen says he and Bowers had a brief conversation at the hospital.
“When I stopped in, I asked him how he was doing. Was he in pain? And he said, ‘No. He was fine,’” Cohen said.
Cohen says Bowers then asked him who he was.
“I said I’m Dr. Cohen, president of the hospital. Then I turned around and left,” he said. “The FBI agent who was guarding him said, ‘I don’t know if I could have done that.’ And I said, ‘If you were in my shoes, I’m sure you could.’”
Bowers was discharged from the hospital Monday morning and arrived at the federal courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh around noon.
He faces 11 counts of criminal homicide, six counts of aggravated assault and 13 counts of ethnic intimidation in addition to federal counts that include weapons offenses and hate crime charges. Federal prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty against him.
A mass shooting in my own neighborhood
This morning, when I was in my apartment (which does not face the street) and I heard a very long succession of sirens from emergency vehicles going by, I suspected that something really horrible had happened, and the only possibility that entered my mind was either a bombing or a mass shooting at one of the nearby synagogues.
With large crowds of people, including large numbers of women and children, all together in an enclosed space, I’d thought for years that something like this could happen. But I never thought it would happen.
They still haven’t published the victims’ names, pending notification of their families.
I’m 47, and I’ve lived in Squirrel Hill my entire life. I’m hoping for at least another 47 years in this neighborhood. It’s too bad some scumbag deprived at least 11 of my neighbors from living out their lives. I don’t understand why anyone would do this.
The latest updates can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_synagogue_shooting
Australian town caves in to Islamic terrorism by banning construction of synagogue
Bondi synagogue ban over terrorism risk leaves Jewish community shocked and furious
August 3, 2017
A local council has banned the construction of a synagogue in Bondi because it could be a terrorist target, in a shock move that religious leaders say has caved in to Islamic extremism and created a dangerous precedent.
The decision, which has rocked the longstanding Jewish community in the iconic suburb, was upheld in court this week as the nation reeled from the alleged airline terror threat and debate raged over increased security measures at airports and other public places.
Muslim activists raise over $70,000 to aid vandalized Jewish cemetery
Muslim activists raise over $70,000 to aid vandalized Jewish cemetery
February 22, 2017
As of early Wednesday morning, a crowdfunding campaign started by Muslim activists had raised over $70,000 in an effort to help repair a vandalized Jewish cemetery near St. Louis, Missouri.
“Muslim Americans stand in solidarity with the Jewish-American community to condemn this horrific act of desecration against the Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery,” read the crowdfunding campaign’s website, which was spearheaded by Muslim-American activists Linda Sarsour and Tarek El-Messidi. “We also extend our deepest condolences to all those who have been affected and to the Jewish community at large.”
The effort comes after more than 170 headstones were damaged late Sunday or early Monday at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, located in the St. Louis suburb of University City, according to a report by the Associated Press on Tuesday.
As of early Wednesday morning, the LaunchGood-hosted campaign had raised more than $58,000, far surpassing the original $20,000 fundraising goal that the organizers said had been met in just three hours.
Robert Spencer: Do the Democrats Really Care About Anti-Semitism?
Do the Democrats Really Care About Anti-Semitism?
By Robert Spencer
November 15, 2016
When is anti-Semitism not anti-Semitism? When it comes from the Left, of course.
President-elect Trump has enraged the establishment media by choosing Steven K. Bannon as his chief strategist, because Bannon, they claim on the flimsiest of evidence, is a white supremacist and an anti-Semite. Meanwhile, that same media is hailing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) for announcing his candidacy for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee – despite Ellison’s very real links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, two groups that are outdone by no one in anti-Semitism.
“A chorus of critics took to Twitter,” said the New York Times, “to lament what they said was a frightening normalization of the fringe views that Mr. Bannon promoted as the chairman of Breitbart News. The site has for years given voice to anti-Semitic, racist and white nationalist ideology.”
The evidence? Slim to none. As David Horowitz pointed out Monday, the source for the claim that Bannon is anti-Semitic is “a one sentence claim from an angry ex-wife in divorce court no less, that Bannon didn’t want their kids to go to school with Jews.” Horowitz noted in response that Bannon had wanted to produce a Horowitz biopic: “I find that particularly amusing since Bannon wanted to make a film to celebrate this Jew’s life.”
Horowitz also noted that CNN hit Bannon over “a headline at Breitbart.com calling Bill Kristol a ‘renegade Jew.’” Surely that proves Bannon’s anti-Semitism, right? Wrong. Said Horowitz: “In fact, neither Breitbart nor Bannon is responsible for that statement. A Jew is. I wrote the article, which was neither requested nor commissioned by Breitbart. And I wrote the headline: ‘Bill Kristol, Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew,’” because “Kristol and his friends betrayed the Republican Party, betrayed the American people, and betrayed the Jews when he set out to undermine Trump and elect the criminal Hillary Clinton. Obama and Hillary are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that launched the Arab drive to destroy Israel and push its Jews into the sea (that was their slogan).”
Joel B. Pollak, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart News and an Orthodox Jew, declared: “I have worked with Stephen K. Bannon, President-elect Donald Trump’s new chief strategist and senior counselor, for nearly six years at Breitbart News. I can say, without hesitation, that Steve is a friend of the Jewish people and a defender of Israel, as well as being a passionate American patriot and a great leader.”
Meanwhile, the same Democrats who are howling about Bannon are applauding Ellison’s announcement that he is running for DNC Chair, despite the abundant evidence of Ellison’s links to anti-Semitic groups. Ellison has spoken at a convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Yet ISNA has actually admitted its ties to Hamas, which styles itself the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Justice Department actually classified ISNA among entities “who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.”
It gets worse. In 2008, Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” That’s from the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb.
Also, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) raised large amounts of for Ellison’s first campaign, and he has spoken at numerous CAIR events. Yet CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.
Hamas has declared: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.” Ellison has spoken before several groups that have ties to Hamas, and has accepted money from a Muslim Brotherhood group; Hamas styles itself the Muslim Brotherhood for Palestine. Does Keith Ellison also, then, think that “killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah”? No establishment media “journalist” would ever dream of asking him that question, but it’s a fair one: Hamas repeatedly demonstrates genuine and murderous anti-Semitism, and Ellison has repeatedly shown himself willing and even eager to associate himself with Hamas-linked groups.
That’s the real story of anti-Semitism in American politics this week. But the media propagandists are most certainly not going to pause in their hysteria over Trump and Bannon to take any notice of it. Their hypocrisy is obvious, their dishonesty unrelenting, and their moral authority absolutely nil.
Oxford University Press bans pigs from children’s books, so here’s Porky Pig reciting the Pledge of Allegiance
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world.
The Telegraph reports:
The Oxford University Press has warned its writers not to mention pigs, sausages or pork-related words in children’s books, in an apparent bid to avoid offending Jews and Muslims.
Jews?
I’m Jewish, and I have neither been offended, nor heard of any Jew claiming to be offended, by pigs being mentioned in literature.
(more…)
Shame on my fellow Jews for holding up commercial flights by refusing to sit next to women!
I’m Jewish, and please allow me to say that it’s absurd that some Jewish men have caused commercial flights to be delayed by refusing to sit next to female passengers.
In September 2014, the New York Post reported:
Ultra-Orthodox Jews refuse to sit next to women, delay flight
Hundreds of Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refused to sit next to women on an El Al jet from New York to Israel — and spent the 11-hour flight trying to bribe people to switch seats and loudly praying in the aisles when they refused.
“It was an 11-hour long nightmare,” one of the passengers told Israel’s ynet news Web site after the Wednesday morning flight landed.
The flight – on the eve of Rosh Hashanah – was not only delayed, but degenerated into chaos once in the air, passengers said.
“Although everyone had tickets with seat numbers that they purchased in advance, they asked us to trade seats with them, and even offered to pay money, since they cannot sit next to a woman. It was obvious that the plane won’t take off as long as they keep standing in the aisles,” said passenger Amit Ben-Natan, a passenger.
In December 2014, the Daily Mail reported:
Delta Airlines flight from New York’s JFK Airport delayed after ultra-Orthodox Jewish passengers refuse to sit next to women
A Delta Airlines flight from New York’s JFK Airport to Israel was delayed by half an hour when a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men refused to sit next to female passengers.
Delta Flight 468, bound for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, was reportedly held up due to several Haredi passengers refusing to to sit in their assigned seats, which were in between two women.
The behavior by these so-called “men,” and the disrespect that they showed to women in a public setting, is inexcusable.
Yes, when you’re at your synagogue, or in other areas where everyone agrees with and is accepting of your religious views, it’s OK not to sit next to women.
But when you are in a public accommodation, where not everyone shares your religious point of view, you have no right to force your religious beliefs on to other people. It is up to you, not other people, to be the flexible one. It is your responsibility, not that of other people, to adapt your behavior .
And if you don’t like the rules on the airplane, then don’t buy a ticket.
Or, buy an entire row of tickets.
But don’t force other people to alter their behavior to accommodate your religious beliefs.
Lassana Bathily, a heroic Muslim employee at a kosher supermarket in Paris, saved the lives of Jews during Islamic terrorist attack
This is awesome!
The world needs more people like Lassana Bathily!
Paris terror attacks: Muslim worker at Jewish store hid customers in cold store
Photo of Lassana Bathily goes viral on Twitter as he is praised for saving lives with his quick thinking at Kosher supermarket
January 10, 2015
Lassana Bathily (in above photo), 24, originally from Mali in west Africa, ushered customers into the cold store at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes
A Muslim shop assistant has been hailed a hero after saving at least six people by hiding them in a walk-in freezer at the Jewish grocery store where an Islamist gunmen made his final stand.
Lassana Bathily, 24, originally from Mali in west Africa, ushered customers into the cold store at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes on Friday, where Ahmedi Couibaly had taken a number of people hostage.
The siege ended when police raided the shop, shooting him dead. Four hostages also died.
However, the toll might have been much worse were it not for the quick thinking of Mr Bathily.
“I went down to the freezer, I opened the door, there were several people who went in with me. I turned off the light and the freezer,” he told the French TV station BFMTV.
“I brought them inside and I told them to stay calm here, I’m going to go out. When they got out, they thanked me.”
He slipped away using a goods lift and was able to provide police with valuable information about what has happening inside the store.
The terrified customers were also able to telephone police from their hiding place in the basement.
An image of Mr Bathily is trending on Twitter, labelled Malian Muslim, shared as a symbol of the people united against terrorism.
Johan Dorre, a father of four, was shopping when the attack happened. He was able to telephone relatives and relay messages.
Jacob Katorza, his uncle, told The Daily Mail: “Johan and the others were terrified that they would be discovered by the terrorists and were forced to huddle together like frightened animals to avoid hypothermia.”
Jewish community members held a vigil on Saturday for the four victims.
France has western Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim populations, which have seen increasing tensions in recent months.
