We mourn the innocent victims killed in Buffalo by a fanatic filled with rage and hate.
Our hearts are heavy with the loss of those bright stars, extinguished by a darkness that has no place in this world.
From the darkest corners of the internet, Evil reached out and recruited Payton Gendron, filling him with an intense hatred and corrupting his soul with a diseased belief in white supremacy.
We know this disease well; like Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue just a few years ago, Payton believed that Jews are plotting to replace white Americans with non-whites.
So he chose to lash out, deliberately targeting our brothers and sisters in the Black community - our friends and allies in the multi-generational civil rights movement fighting against bigotry and racism.
This vile attack targeted our brothers and sisters, but it was directed against us all. It was directed at every member of the vibrant minority communities that strive to make the world a better place for their family, friends, neighbors, and society. In Buffalo, Evil lashed out at Good and attacked the best of us.
This violence and hatred cannot go unanswered. Payton Gendron may well get the punishment he deserves for the vile murders he commited, but this is not enough. We must fight against Evil itself; the Evil that corrupted Payton is still out there, and will only recruit more soldiers to commit horrific attacks. Unless we join together to end it.
We are in this together. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us, and as we have done for generations, we must stand resolute in the face of genocidal horror.
We must answer the violence and hatred by empowering ourselves and our community to denormalize the systemic racism, bigotry, and Jew-hatred that infects society.
In Buffalo, as in Pittsburgh, Poway, Colleyville, and so many other places, we see what Evil does when hatred flourishes. So we resolve to fight it. We are stronger together against hatred and bigotry. #EndJewHatred
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