There’s no shame in seeking respite from evil
U.S. President Donald Trump visited Pittsburgh, Pa., on Tuesday to grieve 11 murdered Jews who might still be alive had he never run for office.
Yes, I have been to Hebrew school: I’m aware anti-Semitism existed long before Trump was president, and millennia before Trump was born.
But it’s a little foolish this late in the game to rule out with complete certainty any link between the president’s selfavowed nationalism and recent horrific events: the massacre of Jewish congregants at a Shabbat service at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh this past Saturday, the murder of two Black senior citizens in Louisville, Ky., at the hands of a white supremacist last week and the mailing of more than a dozen pipe bombs to prominent democrats and liberals in the United States earlier this month, among them Jewish billionaire George Soros, the modern anti-Semite’s favourite scapegoat.
This guy can do anything if you ask an anti-Semitic conspiracy peddler: fund a migrant caravan headed for the United States chock-full of “diseasecarrying terrorists” and “gang leaders,” orchestrate a school shooting to push through gun control legislation and, according to the president himself, equip #MeToo protesters with “professionally made identical signs.”
Soros is also believed to control the government, the media, Hollywood and the weather. Much like Trump, Robert Bowers, the man accused of murdering 11 Jews in Pittsburgh on Saturday, was fixated on the migrant caravan conspiracy in the days leading up to the synagogue shooting.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to label these horrific events mere coincidence when the president of the United States consistently flirts with white nationalism and says things couched in barely veiled anti-Semitism.
In the words of Pittsburgh’s progressive Jewish leaders writing in an open letter to Trump this week: “Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted. You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of colour, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.” It probably won’t be the last. The question is, how do we process this madness and actually do something about it? It’s easy to feel helpless and become complacent, to shut out the news because it’s horrific. Of course, those directly impacted by these tragedies don’t have this luxury. They can’t shut out what has thrown their whole world into chaos.
But what should the rest of us do besides tune out?
I’d advocate devoting at least 10 minutes of your day to reading exclusively good news. Like this: Did you know in the wake of the synagogue attack, Muslim groups raised more than $195,000 for victims of the shooting and their families? Or that the director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh publicly offered protection to the city’s Jewish community, in the form of walking congregants into the temple or keeping watch outside?
Last night I attended a candle light vigil for the victims of the Pittsburgh shooting with my family, in Mel Lastman Square, where Torontonians of all faiths and political persuasions stood together in the cold to condemn hatred in every form. Among them were people waving miniature Israeli flags and people who aren’t big fans of the state of Israel, but everyone appeared able and willing to put aside political differences about a conflict a world away to confront a common enemy on this continent.
It is corny and cliché, but I believe sincerely that it would benefit everyone opposed to the evil of nationalism to take a short break from the dreadful news cycle to focus on the positive, or as Mr. Rogers put it, to “look for the helpers.”
The Tree of Life Synagogue where Saturday’s attack occurred is in Squirrel Hill, a Pittsburgh neighbourhood Mr. Rogers lived in before his death.
It’s because of this that the following Rogers quote has gone viral again in recent days: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ ”
Today, this advice is a comfort to kids and adults both. It’s a comfort to me personally.
Some, like Atlantic writer Ian Bogost, find this distasteful. In a recent piece he writes: “As an adult, it feels good to remember how Mr. Rogers made you feel good as a child. But celebrating that feeling as adults takes away the wrong lesson. A selfish one. We were entrusted with these insights to make children’s lives better, not to comfort ourselves for having failed to fashion the adult world in which they must live.”
This strikes me as unfair and short-sighted. When you comfort yourself, you’re better able to comfort others. In order to fashion a better world — to believe that such a feat is even possible — we need respite from the darkness. We need to look even for a short time at what’s still good.
There’s no shame in that.