Pittsburgh Jews Plan Protests Of Trump Visit
Image by Getty Images
By Josh Nathan-Kazis October 30, 2018
Progressive Jewish groups in Pittsburgh are planning two separate protest actions during President Trump’s controversial visit to the mourning city.
Local activists with the progressive Jewish organization IfNotNow are organizing a public mourning ceremony and rally at intersection in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood at 3 p.m. Tuesday, while activists with the local chapter of the progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc are organizing their own gathering three blocks away at 4 p.m.
President Trump is expected to arrive in Pittsburgh at 3:45 p.m.
“We certainly don’t want Trump to feel welcome, should he come to Squirrel Hill,” said Ella Mason, an IfNotNow activist who lives nearby the Tree of Life congregation, where a gunman massacred eleven Jews on Saturday morning. “He needs to take responsibility for the fact that his dogwhistle politics has helped enable the kind of violent action we saw at Tree of Life.”
The IfNotNow gathering is at the corner of Darlington Road and Murray Avenue, while the Bend The Arc gathering is at the nearby intersection of Forbes Avenue and Beachwood Boulevard. The Bend the Arc group will then march to meet the IfNotNow group, according to a Facebook page announcing the event.
“We are going to be holding a public shiva and rally for all the victims of white supremacy in Pittsburgh and across our nation,” Mason said.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
