The shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, represents a new and dismal milestone in our experience of terrorism. As this magazine reports, the local Catholic ordinary, Bishop Zubik, has been swift to condemn the action and to offer the sympathy and solidarity of Catholics.
There have been Jews in America since colonial times, but the major immigration of Jews in America began in the 1880’s and continued until the First World War. These immigrants came from the Russian Empire and they came seeking a place of safety and refuge from the government-sponsored campaign of pogroms. These pogroms predated the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, but they became much more intense after it. They were the Tsarist government’s attempt to blame the woes on Russia on a supposedly alien element, and they continued even after Tsardom had fallen.
