 Salaam on a given Monday. I'm Jay Fidel. This is ThinkTech. And more specifically, this is bigotry in America, because we've got a really walloping example of that on Saturday, Saturday the Sabbath. So we're hosting a show today called Attack on the Pittsburgh Synagogue, The Causes, Effects, Reactions, and Implications. My co-host who cares deeply about the subject is Marcia Joyner. Welcome, Marcia. Shalom. I'm Rabbi Yuchel Krasnciansky, who is the Rabbi of Chabad of Hawaii. Welcome, Rabbi. Thank you for having me. Yeah. And Pincas Newman, who is a member of Chabad and a member of the Jewish community. Welcome. Thank you for coming down. Thank you. So let's talk about what happened. Rabbi, you're first. What happened, at least from your perspective, you're a rabbi, this could happen in any synagogue? Yeah. That's what's so terrifying. And the crime, I mean, any murder is despicable and heinous. But for it to happen in a synagogue, in a place of worship and prayer, in such an unprovoked way, was purely the age-old anti-Semitism coming through. It was very, very, very sad. And our hearts go out for families of the victims. And most of them were older people. One of the victims was, I think, was 96 or 97 years old. Yeah. And there were two brothers. Two brothers. They went into the door and it seems clear that they greeted the gunner, the shooter. I didn't hear that, but that... Yeah. And then he shot them. Right. So it's a really shocking thing. It's a terrible thing. It's a shocking thing. And the Jewish community worldwide, and not only the Jewish community, the whole community is in shock in this morning for this senseless death and killing and hatred. And it starts of stinking, you know, why and how does this kind of thing happen in our enlightened society. And we see more and more of it in the last couple of years, unfortunately. Yeah. Well, the Anti-Defamation League reported that these kinds of anti-Semitic episodes in the United States had increased by more than 50% in one year during this administration. The most frightening thing and the most shocking thing for us, quote, unquote, Americans, the Jewish American community is that, you know, we know Judaism is, unfortunately, the history of anti-Semitism all throughout the ages, and in the most despicable way in the Holocaust, which is now a lifetime, our parents' lifetime. But in America, for the most part, the Jews have never had it better. It's a very hospitable country and there's no institutionalized anti-Semitism on the contrary. Well, we should talk about that because there seems to be some kind of institutional process that's happening on the web. And there was a website called GAB that this guy was looking at and drawing his ideas from. And it was turned off this morning by Godaddy, which operates the domain. And he, that is, GAB is going to have to find some other place as a platform. They said they would. This troubles me. So Pinkers, you're from Israel? I was born in Israel, yes. And you're here now, and I'm sure this has a great effect on you because you're aware of what happened in Europe. Well, not only am I aware of what happened in Europe, but I happen to be the only child of Holocaust surviving parents. So I take anti-Semitic attacks a little bit personally because had either one of my parents not survived Nazi Germany, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. So to me, they try to snuff my life even before I was born. So it's kind of personal to me, the anti-Semitic manifestations. What's your reaction? Well, just to put things in perspective, in this day and age, it's not acceptable to go after people solely based on their religion. What did these people in Pittsburgh do? Nothing. They were just Jews. That's what they did. They were Jews. They were very sweet people. And very sweet people. But the reason that they went after them is because they were Jews. The reason that the killer went to the black church down south is because they were black. So this singling out of people because of their religion is totally abhorrent to anything Western and to anything decent in our lives should not be, but it is. And just to point something out to you, the only place on the planet today where Jews are being systematically killed because they are Jews is in Israel. In Israel, Jews are being targeted solely because they are Jews. All the other reasons that the other side gives is mere window dressing. You know, the Christians there in the Muslim lands don't fare any better either. And what's interesting to me is that the world is kind of looking at it and not seeing it. It's there. It's apparent. But don't leave out Lavel France, will you? That's right. I should not leave out Lavel France. Yesterday about all the violence against Jews in France in the past year or two. And in Britain. And in Britain. And Russia. And Russia. So let's turn to you, Marsha. You're African-American and you care about this as, I suppose, a minority group who has had bigotry over the years in this country. But more than that, I want to suggest something. And that is 70 years ago plus we had World War Two. Your family was involved and they fought in World War Two. World War Two was an effort which cost millions of lives to stop what Hitler was doing to the Jews, among other things. So that must affect you. Well, being born in the 30s, growing up with every day of the war and what Hitler was doing to the Jews. And we had neighbors that were Jews so I couldn't understand what was wrong with the Jews. But this whole thing of growing up with a war as a child, the food was rationed. We had to stand in line at the slaughterhouse to get two slices of liver. Everything was about the war. And knowing, growing up, knowing that Americans were fighting because, not only because, but mainly because Hitler was what was it called, the final solution to the Jewish problem. Yeah, the Jewish problem. Okay. So he's getting rid of the Jews and the gays and the gypsies. It's like, wow. And then, you know, so my family said, well, if he succeeds, we're next, you know. And so you're growing up knowing this and feeling it. So Saturday, when it happened again, as you know, I just went all to pieces. I was just a basket case. You called me in tears. I was a basket case. And the Saturday before that, there was a man that went to a black church. The doors were locked. He couldn't get in. So he goes to a grocery store and kills two people just because. And then this idiot comes with the bombs, mailing the bombs. And then this, it was just like an overload, I guess is what you call it. There was just, is there no decency? How have we gone so far down this road? And can we come back? Yeah. So I mean, for a long time after World War Two, you know, never again. Yeah. And it was true. You felt that. Never again. Now it's again. What's happened? What is the process in the world, Rabbi, where we can say it's happening again? What has changed since World War Two? That's a very interesting question. I just want to backtrack for a moment. You mentioned when Hitler, that we always had that when we mentioned his name in Hebrew, it means may his name be erased. He said, or he wrote in his book, My Kampf, that the reason why he has to rid the world of the Jewish problem is because the Jews represent the consciousness of the world, conscious, morality, ethics. And to him, that stood in the way to his effort and ambition to take over the world. So sometimes you have to listen to your enemies to get a sense of who you are. Would you repeat that again, please? So our audience hears it. So Hitler said that the Jews are the conscious of the world. Their teachings, their teachings of the Bible, of morality, that's that's messing everything up for him. And they got in the way. And so, A, we need to remember who we are and what our message is. Antisemitism is really something which is very puzzling. It's so difficult to try to understand why and what's the motivation. You apply rational inquiry and you can't figure it out. I've been thinking about this my whole life. I can't figure it out. Can you figure it out? There's no way with a rational mind you can understand something that's irrational. The religious anti-semitism is fueled by the lie that Jews killed Jesus. The communists hated Jews because they were capitalists. The capitalist anti-semitists hated Jews because they were poor and grubby. So it manifests itself in all different ways. Because so far, all I can see is that a go-daddy, which is a tech company, stopped Gab. But I haven't seen any governmental action here. I haven't seen any talk of gun control, even talk of gun control. I haven't seen anybody. I mean there are candlelight vigils in various places in the country. I haven't seen anybody actually suggest some kind of action to deal with this. Well, if you're talking about monitoring the various websites, obviously you're running into the first amendment rights of people and that's a battle. Remind you the Supreme Court has held that the first amendment is limited. You can't incite violence. Free speech does not include inciting violence and that's what happened on Gab. Well, did anybody tell the president that he can't incite violence because he doesn't? Well, you know the problem and I think I think Pinkers would agree with me is it's a very blurred line. It surely is. You can make statements that will incite people and you can target them to people who will pick up on your message even if it's not specific. And he emboldens those people better. A lot of arguments, a lot of articles have been written in the past couple of days to that exact point and you know advice from his own family including Jewish people in his family have been why don't you cool it. But you know what? Immediately after this event he was off lambasting Democrats and you know taking political steps to try to win the midterm elections in various places in the country. He didn't waste any time. So you see what interests me and I like your reaction about it is you know the silence is also a message. If you say something and maybe it sounds a little perfunctory so you have some effect. But then if you if you go dance off and do something else you know completely unrelated to the enormity horrendous quality of this attack then you're giving another message and maybe taken together people will accept that message as an incitement. I don't know that's just me looking at it. How do you look at it? Well this is how I look at it. You cannot lay everything at the president's feet even though he's the highest official of the land. I don't think that anti-semitism or racism need any excuse. They're there and they exist anyway. Anti-semitism is as old as the pharaohs. It does go back that far. You're talking about Moses on the Nile. That's right. So you can't pin it to anything. I think that just hatred of the other comes from us humans and humanity in general still being a tribal society except these days the tribes have different names. You know they they call them countries they call them ethnic groups but we're still a tribal society and first come the members of my tribe and anybody that's outside that taken to the extreme members of the other tribe can be seen as enemies and maybe the prevailing mood of the country is such that there's always divisiveness where the other is seen as the enemy and once you're the enemy and once you're a rat Allah Goebbels the propaganda minister of his name I won't mention once you're a rat it's okay to kill it's okay to exterminate you yes so so I think there's a dynamic working here of circling the wagons around our group around our tribalism we're still not out of tribalism but if you if you make the Jews the conscience if you make the Jews nonviolent and they are certainly nonviolent I mean there's a group as a as a religion as a culture completely completely nonviolent what do the Jews do in response to this sort of thing what do they do is candlelight vigils is at the end of it so the answer I believe is several fronts at the root at the root we were always taught to respond to darkness with light which means that what happens in this anti-semitism and the racism and and is really a result of a breakdown of values in our society going back to 10 commandments they teach us universal values of sacredness of life of love your your neighbor as yourself love your friend as yourself these are the values that really are the building blocks for a healthy society and when you tear away at that and man is left to his most basic instincts that this is this is what this is the result of that what can the Jews do so I think that the the the teachings of Judaism actually when when when shared with the world is what's the world needs to hear in order to heal on a practical level the Torah tells us that if someone comes up to kill you you have to protect yourself so yes there has to be steps taken to protect the the synagogues the communities and here in Hawaii specifically I mean we've got many many concerned people who told us on Saturday after we heard of what happened and yesterday and today that we need to get very serious about security but it's a very it's going to be a difficult thing because our whole culture is you know you open your doors wide and you welcome everyone and stuff like that yeah you want to be a leader in gun did someone steal from you they stole the Torahs from us yes yes right just a moment on that I mean I I personally saw that as anti-Semitism why else would you take a holy object here a bunch of holy objects like Torahs and steal them it's not it's not really a business deal it's to make a statement against the Jewish people yeah and there's nothing you can do with it once you take it I meant you can't try selling the black market I don't think there's much of a black market for Torah there is one little piece here that I think we need to talk about because of this idiot uh he was upset about the Hebrew immigration aid society and he on his website said that they were funding the caravan which he was upset about these brown people coming in and taking over like putting George Soros who's one of the guys that got a bomb last week yeah so here we are these the he I printed this the Hebrew immigration aid society was founded in 1881 they have done nothing but good for people of every race of everybody coming in to help to assist to pay for the ship that's right that's what makes it so ironic you know uh highest he has how do you pronounce highest highest highest highest only those good things it's been doing good things since 1881 did good things for me when I came to this country yeah yeah and my parents when they came to this country so why would anyone say that it is not doing good things it's only trying to help people but they said that they were funding the caravan and therefore they made that connection not you know maybe they are funding maybe they are helping but Amnesty International is helping everybody's a lot of people in the U.S. are very sympathetic to immigrants now so you can see that happening in Hawaii for sure so the fact that they had made that connection and somehow well because the president like the rabbi said Marsha any port in a storm there are so many reasons to pop up and scapegoat the Jews and sometimes well all the time those reasons have no rational you know validity at all the president has made this a bad word the caravan has turned it into a bad word this emboldens this kind of a person to do stupid stuff I think if we looked at the gab website and some of the traffic that that he was getting and immersing himself in we find outrageous statements of all kinds there and what troubles me and I'm gonna leave you with this question so you can tell me how you feel about it he was a loner he was a freaky loner nobody knew him really and that's so often the case with these guys with these these terrorists and he had no community but he did have a community he had the community on the web he had the gab website and other things that he looked at and that stirred him up and although he may not be having coffee with these people as might have been a hundred years ago he was engaging with them in social media and so you have to place some of his craziness if not all of it on technology on social media on websites but the person he worked for the woman that owned the business was a lesbian and he told her now she's writing his check she's paying him he told her she was going to burn in hell because of it but he hated everybody he hated everybody what what what do you say when I tell you that a person like this draws sustenance from the technology of a global community that feeds him hostility and hate that feeds him these irrational crazy thoughts what do you say I'd like to make a comment okay I'm not a psychoanalyst and I'm not going to analyze the whys of what happened and if he was a crazy or not I would like to address what the Rabbi Echel said earlier and in Hebrew we say which means the one that gets up early in the morning to kill you you get up earlier and you kill him Rabbi Echel put a nice spin on it but this is what it actually says you're going to come in the morning and kill me I'm going to get up early and kill you in Israel the incidence of armed robberies is is asymptotically near zero why because everybody's armed you don't go into a place to pull a gun because somebody there's gonna have a gun pull on you I think there's a lot to be said for protecting ourselves every time a thing like this happens right away the opponents of the you know the proponents of gun control jump up and say it's because there are too many guns and we should nix all the guns and whatnot I think the opposite is true if anybody goes into a place of worship or any public place and they don't know who there has a gun that's a deterrent they're gonna think three times before they pull their and if they do there's somebody there to answer you know Rabbi you and I sat together it was a year a year and a half ago and also the rebels in peril we sat together and we talked about the stabbings on the streets of Jerusalem and we talked about a particular horrendous attack in a shoal not just not dissimilar from what we had on saturday well these guys this fellow went in with lead axes he was a butcher's assistant and he butchered people yeah and hacked them in the shoal and it was the same sort of thing what what lessons do you draw from the experience in Israel well um um like I said before I mean there is a great battle that's been going on for time immemorial between good and evil Judaism teaches us that good will ultimately triumph evil but this is the battle of good and evil and when something like this happens we need to strengthen ourselves by promoting good to ultimately eradicate evil obviously uh as pinche said yes we need to um be more uh vigilant in protecting ourselves and uh you know secure you know make sure everything is secure but in the larger point I think this is this is the this is the expression of evil yeah and um you know in a in a healthier society there's less of that yeah well it's certainly I can just say one last thing and this is pertains perhaps more to the Jewish community but also to all of all of the communities and that is when this when this killer murderer came in he said that he wants to get rid of all the Jews he didn't differentiate between one kind of a Jew and another kind of a Jew between uh an observant Jew or a non-observant Jew a right wing Jew a left-wing Jew a politically oriented Jew business rich Jew poor Jew he wanted to get rid of all the Jews and uh very often we in the Jewish community uh we're very fragmented you know we we look at the the other oh from the rich from the the right wing we have arguments about things and this is perhaps a wake-up call it is a wake-up call to realize that we're all one and we have to um and all of all of humanity we're all one so it's a wake-up call for the Jewish people in this country maybe the world but it's also a wake-up call for this country because this is the worst anti-Semitic event that has ever taken place in this country no question about it and and so this is this is this is uh disrespectful of all of the morality of all the gains if you will from World War two from our success the national success in World War two and um well I think we have to be mindful of it and I think it's not only it's not only the people not only the Jewish people it's not only the people across the street who are not Jewish it's the government it's every institution we have to get back to a rational rationality we have to get back to a morality Marsha I know you've got some thoughts and I want you to express them and I want you to close the discussion okay uh so thank you so much for being with us Saturday was without a doubt one of the worst days of my life I was when I called you I was a basket case I just went all the pieces even though I didn't know those people there's still that we are connected and um as you know I have been a part of the Martin Luther King coalition here in Hawaii for 29 years and the biggest thing we take away from that is love that that is how you overcome the darkness is with light and with love therefore we are asking our audience to share the love even if they can't reach out and touch somebody do that share the love share it with all of us that's the only way we can overcome the darkness that's unanimous isn't it yes very much thank you Marsha Marsha join our of my itchill crescent jansky and pink us no man thank you so much thank you for inviting us thank you j