A shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh hits close to home for some in New England’s Jewish community.
Dr. Jack Nusan Porter, an ordained rabbi, sociologist and human rights activist, lives in Newton, Mass. and has family and friends in Pittsburgh. His nephew is a rabbi in Squirrel Hill, the same neighborhood where the shooting occurred.
“We Jewish people, it affects all of us,” said Dr. Porter. “We have to go back to our faith, spirituality and community. Come together. We really have to do something about the rhetoric of hate in this country.”
Porter has studied genocide, and lost several family members during the Holocaust. He says a rise in anti-Semitic rhetoric and crimes in recent years shows the United States is going down a dangerous path.
“We have got to reduce the rhetoric and it starts with the top,” he said.
The Anti Defamation League is calling the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue “likely the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of United States.”
According to the ADL’s 2017 audit, anti-Semitic incidents spiked 60 percent nationwide.
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The Boston Police Department announced Saturday night that it would increase its patrols in and around synagogues in the city.
