Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Israel’s Cabinet Honors Victims Of Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

Israel’s cabinet stood for a moment’s silence on Sunday to honor the victims of a synagogue shooting that killed at least 11 worshippers in Pittsburgh.

“The entire nation of Israel mourns with the families of the murdered in the horrendous massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet session. Saturday’s shooting “is the biggest anti-Semitic crime” in the annals of the United States, he said, calling on the world to unite in the fight against anti-Semitism everywhere.

“It is hard to overstate the horror of the murder of Jews who congregate on the Sabbath and who were murdered only because they were Jews,” Netanyahu added.

A gunman yelling, “All Jews must die,” stormed the Tree of Life synagogue during Jewish sabbath services, killing 11 worshippers and wounding six others, including four police officers, before he was arrested.

“On my behalf, on behalf of the government of Israel and the nation of Israel I convey our heartfelt condolences to the families that have lost dear ones. We all pray for the speedy recovery of the wounded,” Netanyahu said.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry issued a statement describing the shooting as an “act of terrorism that targeted a synagogue … in which American Jews and policemen were killed.”

It added: “We condemn the targeting of places of worship by terrorists motivated by odious, fascist beliefs based on the supremacy of the white race.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.