Marie Griffith, John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor and director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
Like countless other U.S. citizens, like untold numbers of people around the globe, we are mournful and livid in the wake of the recent murders in Louisville and Pittsburgh. Maurice Stallard, shot while shopping at Kroger with his 12-year-old grandson, and Vickie Lee Jones, shot subsequently in the store’s parking lot, lost their lives to a racist hate crime originally aimed at an African American church.
The eleven who died during religious services at Tree of Life Synagogue—Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger—died at the hands of an anti-Semite enraged by imagining an “invasion” of refugees into the U.S., one he blamed in part on the Jews.
These two horrific events will be forever linked in our collective memory, for both their close proximity and their origins in malicious white bigotry.
Read the full piece in Religion & Politics.
Comments and respectful dialogue are encouraged, but content will be moderated. Please, no personal attacks, obscenity or profanity, selling of commercial products, or endorsements of political candidates or positions. We reserve the right to remove any inappropriate comments. We also cannot address individual medical concerns or provide medical advice in this forum.