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When a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protestors in Charlottesville, South Carolina, President Donald Trump said that there was “blame on both sides” rather than denounce racism or white supremacy. For this, he was widely criticized.

This past weekend, there was a tragic shooting in Pittsburgh. Eleven people were killed, and they were specifically targeted because they were Jewish. The shooting lasted for an hour, during which congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue fled, hid, and hoped. Police charged into the building while gunfire was still raging. It ended when the shooter, wounded, crawled to the police and surrendered. He told them that he wanted all Jews to die because they were committing a genocide against his people.

President Donald Trump made a statement following the shooting. In his statement, Trump denounced anti-semitism. It was a far cry from his speech last year––at least at first blush. But for the leaders of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, it was not enough. They are demanding that Trump denounce all white nationalism.

“Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted,” the group wrote. “You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.”

This is an impressive move on the part of the city’s Jewish leaders. First, it is selfless. They have refused to let this tragedy turn their community inwards, to separate themselves from the world around them. Instead, they have put this shooting into the context of a wider narrative, one in which white nationalism leads to a variety of problems, not just shootings.

The leaders’ statement is also impressive because they could have been happy with what Trump said, since he specifically mentioned anti-semitism. They could have taken that an let it be. Why didn’t they? One possibility is that Trump’s quick claim of anti-Semitism was a political move. The Republican party is allying itself with Israel over and above the Democrats, and Trump’s courtship of evangelical voters requires him to be overtly pro-Israel. Rather than let Trump get away with political platitudes, they chose to refocus the narrative towards what they see the issue is: white nationalism justifying a variety of xenophobic ideologies and, in this case, horrific violence.

Full story at The Hill.

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