PITTSBURGH: Federal prosecutors added more charges against the man accused of killing 11 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue, according to an indictment filed on Wednesday, as the city held funerals for three more victims.
Eleven worshipers were gunned down on Saturday morning by a man who stormed into the Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire, yelling anti-Semitic statements including: “All Jews must die.”
The attack, believed to be the deadliest against Jews in the United States in recent history, has fueled a fierce political debate about white nationalism and anti-Semitism ahead of hotly contested US congressional elections next week.
Mourners gathered for the funerals of Melvin Wax, 88, who was leading Sabbath services when the attack began; retired real estate agent Irving Younger, 69; and retired university researcher Joyce Fienberg, 75.
The aftermath of the tragedy still pervaded life in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood where the synagogue is located.
In coffee shops, customers talked about the victims they knew, remembering them as civic-minded, kind and pillars of the community. In the street, friends embraced and comforted one another during the period of raw grief.
Libby Zal said that Younger was such a fixture in Squirrel Hill that a local store he frequented would send him a “get well” card if he did not appear after three days.
Dan Frankel, a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, called Younger outgoing and opinionated.
“He was very interested in social justice and he probably would not have wanted the death penalty (for the gunman),” Frankel said.
A grand jury voted to indict Bowers on 44 counts, according to a filing in federal court in Pittsburgh. He had faced 29 counts.
The new charges included 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death, and various charges related to his use of a gun in anti-religious violence.
Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.
The synagogue attack has heightened a national debate over Republican US President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, which critics say has contributed to a surge in white-nationalist and neo-Nazi activity. His administration denies he has encouraged far-right extremism and is instead attempting to unify America.
Amid the first funerals for victims on Tuesday, Trump visited Tree of Life. Thousands protested his presence in the city, accusing him of using rhetoric that has fueled anti-Semitism in America.
Several thousand protesters, an ethnically mixed crowd of all ages, held an anti-Trump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with such slogans as: “We build bridges not walls.”
Trump made no public comments during his visit, but wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning that his office had been “shown great respect on a very sad and solemn day” in Pittsburgh.
“Small protest was not seen by us, staged far away,” he tweeted. “The Fake News stories were just the opposite-Disgraceful!“
More than 1,800 people paid their respects on Tuesday at Rodef Shalom, another synagogue in Squirrel Hill, the heart of the city’s Jewish community.
Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania’s second largest city came seven days before elections that will determine whether his Republican Party maintains control of both houses of Congress or whether the Democrats seize a majority in one chamber or both.
The accused gunman in the synagogue attack, Robert Bowers, was charged on Monday with 29 federal felony counts including hate crimes.
Four days after the attack, nerves in Squirrel Hill were still frayed. A public school was briefly placed on lockdown following a report that someone had brought a gun onto campus, police said. The report was later found to be false.
Jodi Smith, a Pittsburgh native, joined mourners ahead of the Wax funeral at the Ralph Schugar Chapel and remembered him as a “very polite, gentle man.”
“I could have claimed him as a father,” Smith said. “He was always at the synagogue, always helping out. The synagogue had been his life since his wife passed away a few years ago.”
Fienberg spent 25 years as a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center until she retired in 2008.
“She was an engaging, elegant, and warm person,” the center said on Facebook.
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect charged with 44 counts
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect charged with 44 counts
- Eleven worshipers were gunned down on Saturday morning by a man who stormed into the Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire
- A grand jury voted to indict the suspect on 44 counts
Afghan barbers under pressure as morality police take on short beards
KABUL: Barbers in Afghanistan risk detention for trimming men’s beards too short, they told AFP, as the Taliban authorities enforce their strict interpretation of Islamic law with increasing zeal.
Last month, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said it was now “obligatory” to grow beards longer than a fist, doubling down on an earlier order.
Minister Khalid Hanafi said it was the government’s “responsibility to guide the nation to have an appearance according to sharia,” or Islamic law.
Officials tasked with promoting virtue “are obliged to implement the Islamic system,” he said.
With ministry officials patrolling city streets to ensure the rule is followed, the men interviewed by AFP all spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
In the southeastern province of Ghazni, a 30-year-old barber said he was detained for three nights after officials found out that one of his employees had given a client a Western-style haircut.
“First, I was held in a cold hall. Later, after I insisted on being released, they transferred me to a cold (shipping) container,” he said.
He was eventually released without charge and continues to work, but usually hides with his clients when the patrols pass by.
“The thing is that no one can argue or question” the ministry officials, the barber said.
“Everyone fears them.”
He added that in some cases where both a barber and clients were detained, “the clients have been let out, but they kept the barber” in custody.
Last year, three barbers in Kunar province were jailed for three to five months for breaching the ministry’s rules, according to a UN report.
‘Personal space’
Alongside the uptick in enforcement, the religious affairs ministry has also issued stricter orders.
In an eight-page guide to imams issued in November, prayer leaders were told to describe shaving beards as a “major sin” in their sermons.
The religious affairs ministry’s arguments against trimming state that by shaving their beards, men were “trying to look like women.”
The orders have also reached universities — where only men study because women have been banned.
A 22-year-old Kabul University student said lecturers “have warned us... that if we don’t have a proper Islamic appearance, which includes beards and head covering, they will deduct our marks.”
In the capital Kabul, a 25-year-old barber lamented that “there are a lot of restrictions” which go against his young clients’ preference for closer shaves.
“Barbers are private businesses, beards and heads are something personal, they should be able to cut the way they want,” he said.
Hanafi, the virtue propagation minister, has dismissed such arguments, saying last month that telling men “to grow a beard according to sharia” cannot be considered “invading the personal space.”
Business slump
In Afghanistan, the majority are practicing Muslims, but before the Taliban authorities returned to power in 2021, residents of major cities could choose their own appearance.
In areas where Taliban fighters were battling US-backed forces, men would grow beards either out of fear or by choice.
As fewer and fewer men opt for a close shave, the 25-year-old Kabul barber said he was already losing business.
Many civil servants, for example, “used to sort their hair a couple of times a week, but now, most of them have grown beards, they don’t show up even in a month,” he said.
A 50-year-old barber in Kabul said morality patrols “visit and check every day.”
In one incident this month, the barber said that an officer came into the shop and asked: “Why did you cut the hair like this?“
“After trying to explain that he is a child, he told us: ‘No, do Islamic hair, not English hair’.”
