‘Horrific time for our community’

Vigil to be held Sunday in memory of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting victims

Saturday morning’s service was almost over at Congregation B’nai Israel on Church Street when worshippers learned about the massacre 400 kilometres away.

They reacted with shock and heartbreak, said the St. Catharines congregation’s vice-president, Rosalie Samosh.

At about 10 a.m., a gunman opened fire inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and injuring six more before a suspect surrendered to police more than an hour later.

“You don’t expect that when you enter any place of worship, whether it’s a mosque, a synagogue or a church. You go there in peace to be with your community, your faith group, to socialize. You don’t expect it to be a mass-murder scene,” she said.

“It’s a very horrific time for our community right now.”

In the aftermath of the massacre, Samosh said newly elected city councillor Karrie Porter contacted the synagogue, offering to collaborate to help organize an event to show support for the people of Pittsburgh and demonstrate that the people of St. Catharines will not tolerate hate and bigotry.

Porter said she was at work Saturday at Start Me Up Niagara’s Work Action Centre across the road from the St. Catharines synagogue when she learned about the worst anti-Semitic attack in history in the United States and likely all of North America.

“I was shocked and outraged and devastated,” Porter said. “It was a mass shooting, but it was done by a fascist and it requires a response from the community.”

The local community response will be a candlelight vigil at 6 p.m. Sunday at St. Catharines city hall.

Samosh said anyone is welcome to participate in the vigil, regardless of their faith.

“There’s not much we can do other than be decent citizens and doing our civic duty to ensure that we stand up against hate speech and violence and bigotry and help build a civil society,” Samosh said.

“We’re also very grateful for all the positive emails of support we’ve received from people in the community, and also want to stand in solidarity with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh so they know they’re not standing alone at this time. We will stand up against anti-Semitism or hatred of any kind.”

The number of anti-Semitic incidents across Canada have increased in recent years.

The 36th annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, published earlier this year by B’nai Brith Canada and the League for Human Rights, showed 1,752 incidents occurring in 2017 and 1,728 a year earlier. The audit said most incidents took place in Ontario and Quebec, and included vandalism such as Nazi and KKK graffiti, painted in some cases on school playground equipment.

Samosh said she has noticed anti-Semitic incidents increasing here, too.

“There are small incidents in the city that don’t really get a lot of attention,” she said. “There is certainly no room for this type of hatred — not in our city, not in our country.”

Porter, who will represent St. Patrick’s ward, has also noticed increasing racism in St. Catharines and Niagara, aimed at different groups.

“We see anti-Semitism everywhere, online. I see it increasing,” said Porter, who also organized a vigil following the Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017. “There are racist dog whistles around Muslims and now Jewish people. The language is like nothing I have ever seen. … We need to respond and we need to support communities who are under attack.”

Samosh, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, called it “shocking” that more than 70 years after the end of the Second World War “we are still dealing with these issues.”

“One hoped that the world would learn.”

Although there are “wonderful people in our society,” she said there are “clearly still some who feel that this kind of hatred is acceptable.”

“It’s not.”