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Rhetoric, Racism And Rage: A Violent Week In America

A woman tries to light a candle across from the Tree of Life Synagogue after a shooting there left 11 people dead.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
A woman tries to light a candle across from the Tree of Life Synagogue after a shooting there left 11 people dead.

Multiple people in the United States have been targeted, shot or killed because of their race, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation this week.

Eleven were killed in an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday.

The Anti-Defamation League has called it the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history. The shooter is in custody and is facing 29 felony counts. The killings are being investigated as a hate crime, and the top prosecutor has promised that justice will be “swift” and “severe.”

The United States has seen a startling rise in hate crimes recently. And the alleged attacker in Pittsburgh had made anti-Semitic posts on social media.

A shooting in Kentucky is being investigated as a hate crime as well. Earlier in the week, a gunman tried to enter a black church. Failing that, he killed two black shoppers at a nearby grocery store.

Also this week, multiple critics of the president received bombs in the mail.

This was a week in the United States.

GUESTS

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Executive director, T’ruah; @rabbijilljacobs

Charlie Warzel, Senior technology writer, BuzzFeed News; @cwarzel

Indira Lakshmanan, Executive editor, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting; columnist, The Boston Globe; @Indira_L

For more, visit https://the1a.org.

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