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The #strongerthanhate is a subject that is dear to my heart because it represents my values on how to treat your neighbour. I believe strongly in that people should treat others in the way they would like to be treated even if they have conflicting opinions. However, opinions are words and can effortlessly gravitate from being just a post on social media to actions that damage those who are innocent.

Now, you might be wondering who is the face behind the hashtag? I thought it must be a Jew. It was Tim Hindes,  who happened to hear the blasting of sirens when he got home Saturday morning on October 27, 2018, a Christian man with strong beliefs in equality and against anti-Semitism. After learning about the Tree of Life massacre that happened on the Jewish Sabbath. He sat down at his computer and designed the “Stronger Than Hate” logo and since then it has been popping up everywhere we go. Hindes posted it privately on his Facebook account and it only took minutes of the request from his friends to share it. It proves to show how spaces online allow for ordinary people like Hindes to create things that are close to his heart, without the intention for his message to spread across the nation, but here we are now, I don’t even know this wonderful man and I am spreading his original message in that we are #strongerhtanhate. His creation turned from his message to our message, and here are just a few examples of how that happened: (1) support the #strongerthanhate by purchasing your own shirt (but not thru Amazon because some people are just selling them to become wealthy when you can donate make your donations to the cause) , (2) Universal Manufacturing Corp in Zelienople, PA has always  put up a Christmas tree during the holiday season, but this year they decided to do something different (click it). (3) Also, the hashtag is making some people reconstruct their identities by tattooing it on their bodies. Our online communities allow for us to spread our message even if we don’t intend for people to see it, but what most of us don’t realize is that every post we make, every picture we share, every post we like can develop and shape who we are, our communities and most importantly, gives our world some clarity in helping shape the future for our children. Hindes, just helped us get started on what to do about hate in our country (thank you @thindes) which is to take care of it by speaking up even if it is hard.

Why would a man spend his Saturday morning shooting up the Tree of Life synagogue (temple)? A question most of us are wondering. It all started when Robert Bowers (46 years old) published hate-speech comments toward Jewish and Muslim people on GAB- a social media platform that defends freedom of speech and mostly consists of neo-Nazis, where he could interact with other people who also were anti-semitic. Bower’s profile bibliography stated, “Jews are the children of Satan” (Andy Campbell). However, he was not racists only towards Jews, but also Muslims, since Jews helped “evil” Muslim immigrants into our country (Christopher Mathias). The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a non-profit in which seeks to protect refugees and welcome them into the United States is what motivated Bowers in seeking to kill Jews, which he confessed to the police. A few hours before the shooting he stated “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in”, and has he raged into the synagogue he yelled, “all Jews must die!”(Andy Campbell). Bowers posted anti-semitic comments at least 68 times within 19 days before the mass-shooting that he was planning, so clearly there were suspicions signs before the horrific event. I think you get the point that he was just a terrible human being. However, in my opinion, hateful human beings like Bowers (all mass shooters) are not born hateful, they are shaped this way since the day they were born.  

Bowers owned 21 guns and lived only 25 minutes away from the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, a very dense Jewish population. He also chose Saturday because he knew it was the busiest time of the week for Jews to come together because of the Sabbath. However, a neighbour mentioned that “she could not remember seeing him speak to anyone, not in the two years she’d lived there” (Turkewitz, Roose).  He viewed trump as a “puppet of Jewish interest” (Lord,  Huffaker, Navratil) and that he was a “…globalist, not a nationalist…”(Turkewitz, Roose), so clearly it has nothing to do with Presidents Trump influence like some of us thought, but more so has to do with his family history. In Bowers online family tree it reveals that his father was Randall G. Bowers who was charged in 1979 (age 27) with rape and then committed suicide six months later (Turkewitz, Roose), and there was no mention about his mother.

Our biggest issue with online platforms like GAB is that it was intentionally created for people to practice freedom of speech, so in the eyes Bowers, he wasn’t doing anything wrong when he was sharing his opinion about how he felt about Jews and Muslims. He also did not have a normal childhood which may explain his mental issues and reason for hate because he never was shown, unconditional love. However, even though GAB is totally against violence and terrorism they also don’t realize that their platform strongly impacts society and individual’s identities because they make a safe place for these kinds of people to bond through hate which creates an avalanche of hateful comments because once a person sees other people doing, everyone might think it’s ok to spread hate. Hence, it turns individuals on to hate speech which may lead to acts of terrorism and making surveillance of posts more difficult for GAB to monitor no matter how much they are against it.

Now, I would like to mention all the eleven innocent lives: (Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland, City of Pittsburgh; Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township, Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood Borough; Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill; David Rosenthal, 54, of Squirrel Hill; Cecil and David Rosenthal are brothers; Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg; Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg; Bernice and Sylvan Simon (husband and wife); Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill; Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill; Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington, City of Pittsburgh (Laramie Cowan)) that were taken from their communities/families and to show how since then we have come together not just a Jewish community, but a blur of all communities to help comfort one another in this tragic time. I would also like to point out how mainly twitter and other social media platforms helped bring all communities throughout our country to bring awareness and provided a space in which we all can grieve together and remember all those people that were stolen from us. Today, we move forward and work to resolve the hate-crime in America, and encourage the act of love to our neighbours, no matter what they believe, or where they might come from, which will make us better individuals, communities and stronger than hate.   

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America, Now  is the Time to Come Together

Hey, fellow Tumblrers, I am your newest member of Tumblr and I am here to tell you all about what it’s like being an American Jew in today’s crazy world. I will start off by saying that I enjoy learning about people, their cultures, and I always have an open mind when it comes to different religions. I consider myself a spiritual Jew rather than a religious Jew. I enjoy the festival of lights whether it is Christmas or Hanukkah, and I love dressing up with my family on Halloween and Purim. Basically, if the day involves food, family, friends, or meeting new people, I want to be involved and celebrate on whatever day it might be, or I will make up an excuse to celebrate! Community and my identity are very important to me since I come from a large family in which I naturally talk like I am yelling at a crowd because I think no one can hear me.  That is why I have chosen Now that you know a little about me, I would like to paint you a little picture of what our world is coming too.

Imagine living in a place where you are in a constant state of fear and worry, living amongst people who feel as though you do not belong, or when you turn your head up to the sky all you see are rockets coming your way. For Israelis, this is their typical day, and it has been like this since 1948 (25,519 days) when they first were recognized as a country.  However, the difference is that they do not live in constant fear since they follow specific procedures and strategies developed by the IDF, who are known for being the most technologically advanced military in the world. For example, “since 1985, Israel is the world’s largest exporter of drones, responsible for about 60 percent of the global market” (Katz,2017). So, Israelis’ know exactly what to do when they are in a crisis. However, it is different here in America, because we are sheltered in the sense that our news channels do not cover the anti-Semitic issues that Jews are facing in Israel. For example, “after a month of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, there were hardly any images shown in Western media of Hamas terrorists holding guns or Hamas terrorists engaged in hostile activities against Israel” (Behar,2014). Hence, that is why America was so shocked to witness the most recent mass-shooting (on October 28th, 2018), in Pittsburgh, because as Americans, we have never been exposed to this type of violence even though it wasn’t the first time Americans were victims of a hate crime, but per WPXI it was the worst mass-shooting in state history (AJC,2018). It was when I realized that anti-Semitism was not just in Israel, but it has now come to our home. It was a time where it instilled fear amongst not just Jews, but everyone across the country when they found out Bill Bowers, a 46-year-old man, who casually walked in to The Tree of Life Synagogue on Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath), holding four handguns. It could have been a church, a Mandir, a mosque, or any other house of prayer. I feel that Americans are not as prepared as Israelis’ are when it comes to major violence like mass shooters, that cause major disturbance amongst our families, friends, neighbors, or even strangers- our nation.

America, now is the time to come together. According to the former Tree of Life synagogue rabbi, “politicians should “get off their rear ends” after synagogue massacre” (NBC News, 2018). Clearly, our government and the NRA can’t control issues of mass shootings that have been going for many years now. For instance, when President Trump was asked a question on if he will start they will relook at gun laws, he stated “Gun laws have ‘little to do’ with the outcome of Pittsburgh synagogue” ((ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, 2018). After thinking a lot about what our country has been experiencing relating to mass shootings that have been going, whether they are due to mental health, hate crimes, or anything else, I wanted to focus on studying the #StrongerThanHate, which is mainly focused on anti-Semitism. I would like to also point out that Jewish people are big on establishing an identity, due to all the anti-Semitism that our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents (and so on) have experience up to today. So, coming together as a community “provides comfort and shows strength”(Chandler, 2018). However, I regret not doing it enough, but now I am motivated too after this tragic. Having a voice and speaking up for what we believe is right is why people today rely so much on interactive technologies such as social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and websites like Tumblr, Reddit and YouTube, etc. Today, everyone wants to express themselves, and that is why we are so lucky to be living in today’s digital age where we have a global reach. The New Media that we have access to allows us to be heard by everyone who stumbles and/or reaches for our message.

I have chosen to study this #strongerthanhate, because I feel that we all need to brainstorm together, and learn to effectively talk about the issues we are facing as a nation regarding all the hate plaguing our country, because it is a touchy subject in which I feel people are nervous to confront. This would also help me shape my opinions on gun control and what strategies I think we should take to help stop hate-crimes in the future since I never gave it any thought because I am not a political person at all. We no longer can just leave it in the hands of those people who we think have the power. We have the power since we are the people who come from the land of freedom and opportunity. Hence, I stand strongly behind #StrongerThanHate as a fellow Jew, American, and human being.

I also wanted to share with those of you who were unaware of the #storngerthanhate by showing you how people use it various social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Also, be aware that there are many more other hashtags that are related to the specific one I chose that have to do with the shooting in Pittsburgh such as #Muslims4Pittsburgh, #TreeofLifeSynagogue, #PittsburghShooting and more. So keep scrolling…

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