Nurturing love Dailey
Pittsburghers work to protect one another
We hear these words regularly, as calls to action or responses to evil. Are they true? Most people, it seems, want them to be true and want to live so as to make them true, but the catch, the heartbreaking catch, is in the timing.
As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Justice and love are essential expressions of “the moral universe,” but love is easier for us to grasp; from love we move, via empathy, to justice. As the new Carrie Underwood song pithily puts it, “In the end, love wins.”
In the end. We hope for that, but here and now, how are we doing?
Anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world. In the U.S., it intersects intensely but unpredictably with partisan passions.
A scant week after the Tree of Life synagogue massacre here, voters in Michigan and Minnesota elected to Congress two women, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, respectively, who have provoked anger with numerous statements and tweets widely construed as anti-Semitic.
Around the same time, the AntiDefamation League requested that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan censure Iowa Rep. Steve King for his history of perceived anti-Semitic remarks. Mr. King is a Republican; Ms. Tlaib and Ms. Omar are Democrats.
In this national context, I wondered what reaction Judah Samet, a Holocaust and Tree of Life survivor, was experiencing after his memorable moments at January’s State of the Union address.
That night, claimed proud nephew Larry Barasch, Mr. Samet “stole the show,” blowing a kiss to Congress and the country and responding to the historic “Happy Birthday” serenade by shouting “thank you.”
Mr. Samet came home to an endless stream of speaking invitations. In a Post-Gazette article covering his appearance at Quigley Catholic High School in Baden, he talked of his Republican politics and gratitude for President Donald Trump.
For some, any article is an invitation to vent, but this one could have pushed some real “hot buttons.” How did readers respond?
Only three comments were posted; a fourth, from someone with a history of ugliness, was blocked. On Facebook, there were eight comments (some contentious), nine shares and 66 likes.
While PG leadership was surprised by the overall mildness, it reflects Mr. Samet’s experience around town.
“My reception, wherever I go, is marvelous,” he told me last week. He’s received no hate mail, no nasty phone calls.
When he returned from Washington, D.C., “we went out to lunch with him,” Mr. Barasch recalled, “and people were coming up out of the blue, wanting to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him again, wanting to thank him, wanting to take selfies. We couldn’t leave!”
It has long been noted, though, that the internet’s relative anonymity unleashes attitudes that most people would not indulge in face-to-face. Three related and recently published articles caught my attention, and it turns out they’ve been treated differently.
For two — one on a new hate crime study centered around Tree of Life and one on the synagogue’s new interim executive director — the Post-Gazette preemptively disabled the comments section.
“Out of respect for those who died in the massacre, we have been more proactive,” explained deputy managing editor Jim Iovino.
Protecting what’s good and giving no foothold to evil — that’s love and justice in action, isn’t it?
The third article I noticed was a profile of Tree of Life hero Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, focusing on a Philadelphia event at which he was to sing. The comments section was left open, but none were posted.
I have a theory: Rabbi Myers and Judah Samet are not strangers. Their lovely characters and moral courage have been clear for all the world to see since that horrible October day, and evil is ashamed in the face of love.
Yes, love is stronger than hate. It’s contagious, too, and Pittsburghers are nurturing it.