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Israeli leaders offer prayers after synagogue attack

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue Saturday.

“I was heartbroken and appalled by the murderous attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue today,” Netanyahu said in a video message posted on Twitter shortly after the attack.

“The entire people of Israel grieve with the families of the dead. We stand together with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. We stand together with the American people in the face of this horrendous anti-Semitic brutality,” Netanyahu continued. “And we all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded.”

Naftali Bennett, minister of education and minister of diaspora affairs, will travel to the US and visit the community center in Pittsburgh according to Israel’s government.

Bennett will visit the scene of the attack, meet the local community and participate in the funerals of those killed in the attack.

“When Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, the people of Israel feel pain. All Israel are responsible for one another,” Bennett said in the statement.

“The State of Israel is deeply pained by this terrible anti-Semitic murder. Our Jewish brothers and sisters came under a murderous attack while at prayer. Our hearts go out to the families of those killed, and we pray for the swift recovery of the injured, as we pray this is the last such event. Jewish blood is not free,” he said.

“May the memory of the murdered be blessed,” he concluded.

Other Jewish organizations released statements concerning the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) has asked President Trump to address the nation in wake of the mass murder.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with families of the dead and injured as well as the rest of the congregation and Jewish community,” Rabbi Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, dean and founder and associate dean and director of global social action of the leading Jewish Human Rights NGO said in a. The Rabbis will be leading a memorial program at Mauthausen Concentration Camp Sunday morning.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews also released a statement on Saturday’s shooting saying that prayers are needed now.

“This despicable, cowardly attack comes as Israel struggles to defend herself from continued terrorist rocket fire from Gaza. All this is a painful reminder that anti-Semitism — which one writer called “the longest and deepest hatred of human history” — is alive and well, and not just in the Middle East, but in the U.S., and throughout the world,” the statement continued.

“Please pray that God will comfort the loved ones of those killed and injured in the horrific attack in Pittsburgh. Pray for protection for the people of Israel, who live daily with the threat of attacks from terrorists bent on destroying the Jewish state. And pray for the day when hateful anti-Semitism will be no more, and God will bless His people with His most precious gift — the gift of shalom, peace,” the statement concluded.

Anti-Semitism is increasing across the globe, putting Jewish communities at risk. Even in the United States, some political leaders still share the stage with those spewing hate against Jews.

At the funeral of Aretha Franklin this summer, Bill and Hillary Clinton were joined by Barack and Michelle Obama in standing right next to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Democrats were late in apologizing for the appearance and did so only after outcries from Jewish leaders.

Just weeks earlier, a sermon on May 27, 2018, Farrakhan preached from his pulpit that, “Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”

At a meeting of the Nation of Islam at Madison Square Garden in 1985, Farrakhan said of the Jews: “And don’t you forget, when it’s God who puts you in the ovens, it’s forever!”

In response to one of Farrakhan’s speech most anti-Semitic speeches, Nathan Pearlmutter, then Chair of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith, referred to Farrakhan as the new “Black Hitler

Despite his long record of hate speech, Farrakhan continues to be a popular speaker on liberal college campuses across the nation.

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