Violence against Jewish People Makes No Sense at All.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. I don't know. But it's getting worse, along with other attacks against The Other.

Nobody, not Jews or anyone else, should be regarded as The Other, but tragically they are and have been throughout history. Humans seem to need scapegoats. Specifically, though, the abrupt rise in anti-Semitism over the last two years as documented by the ADL shows that it is no coincidence. In this excellent but very sad op-ed Howard Fineman notes that historically, Jews have been the canaries in the coal mine.

Now I must wonder: If Pittsburgh isn’t safe for Jews, if Squirrel Hill isn’t safe, if the Tree of Life isn’t safe, what place is? Without diminishing anyone else’s suffering and death, it’s a sad fact that the Jews often are the canaries in the coal mine of social and political collapse. So, what does the bloodshed in the Tree of Life mean?

It is a sign that hatred of The Other is poisoning our public life. It’s always been a vivid strain in America, stimulated by the stress of immigrant waves, but one we have overcome time and again. Although we often honor it in the breach, our founding idea remains: that each person here is precious and born with unalienable rights. Now, political enemies in America deny each other’s humanity.

It is a sign that communications can foster something less than understanding. Social media allows us to be connected but also caricatured as propaganda in campaigns of dehumanizing division.

It is a sign that President Trump’s remorselessly cynical, jungle-style vision of how to conduct business and politics is ripping apart a society already under the stress of generational, demographic, technological, economic and social change.

The rest here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/opinion/pittsburgh-squirrel-hill-shooting-synagogue.html