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Pittsburgh synagogue shooter is dismayed not to have inspired more attacks on Jews, psychiatrist testifies
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — “If I have chance, will continue war,” appeared in a scrawl on a notepad, projected onto large TV screens in the courtroom.
The image showed a note taken by a psychiatrist in early June as he assessed Robert Bowers, the man who murdered 11 worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
The psychiatrist, George Corvin, was working for Bowers lawyers, in an attempt to demonstrate that the gunman is mentally ill and so should not receive the death penalty. His testimony is part of the final phase of Bowers’ trial, in which the gunman, who was convicted last month, will be sentenced either to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Corvin is not the first to note during Bowers’ trial that the gunman has persisted in his deeply held antisemitic beliefs in the years since the massacre. But his testimony on Friday offered unsettling insights into what is going on in Bowers’ head as he sits impassively, watching the testimony of those whose lives he devastated.
Corvin, who met with Bowers 10 times in May and June, said Bowers saw the trial as getting out his message that Jews are a menace.
“Did he tell you he likes hearing the evidence?” U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan asked him.
“Yes,” Corvin said. “I think he likes hearing the evidence so he knows other people can hear the evidence.”
Olshan asked Corvin to explain another notation from the June 3 interview, “I’m upset I still have record of antisemitic act for five years.”
Bowers wanted others to emulate him, Corvin explained, and was disappointed that his mass killing still stands as the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history.
“He hoped the act would bring attention to what he, quote, ‘knows,’ so more people would be inspired to protect God’s kingdom,” Corvin said.
Bowers took some relief in the mass killing of dozens of Muslims at two mosques in New Zealand months after his own crime, Corvin said, by an Australian who shared his theories of a Jewish plot to “replace” whites. “That person gets it,” Corvin said, describing what Bowers said.
Mourners visit the memorial outside the Tree of Life Synagogue, Oct. 31, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, four days after 11 Jewish worshippers were killed during services there. The alleged shooter’s trial begins April 24, 2023. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Bowers believes that Jews are the instrument of Satan, Corvin said, and that they are assisting in the entry of immigrants of color into the United States to kill white people, which will trigger the End of Days.
Corvin’s testimony Thursday and his cross-examination on Friday replayed an argument that has been core to his sentencing: Is his antisemitism a function of schizophrenic delusion, or is it simply one man’s manifestation of the conspiracy theories that have for millennia been deployed to justify the persecution of Jews?
The jury has rejected the idea that Bowers’ beliefs were rooted in illness twice, in the first phase of the trial establishing Bowers’ guilt, and in the second phase, to determine whether his crimes met the threshold to merit the death penalty. Now they are deciding whether Bowers deserves the death penalty.
The defense is arguing that what they say is Bowers’ mental illness should be a factor mitigating against the death penalty. If a single juror among the five men and seven women rejects the death penalty, Bowers, 51, will automatically be sentenced to life without parole.
Corvin, a Raleigh, North Carolina, psychiatrist who speaks with a thick Southern accent, has proven the most resilient defense expert in the face of the prosecution’s insistence that Bowers is not schizophrenic. He acknowledged that Bowers’ arguments about Jews are commonplace but said that they were underpinned by his delusional belief that God had chosen him to carry out the massacre.
“People on Gab who hate Jews came to the right conclusion but for the wrong reasons,” Corvin said, describing Bowers’ outlook, referring to the social media site that is a haven for extremism, and where Bowers posted his thoughts about Jews.
“If you hold all of this together,” he said of his cumulative interviews with Bowers, “this is the result of mental illness. He believes he is saving lives. He would do so again if God told him to do so.”
“If the walls” of his prison “will collapse and if God wants to him to die in the conflagration, he will do it,” Corvin said.
Corvin wrapped his jabs at the prosecution’s arguments in self-deprecation. When Olshan noted that Corvin had only three published articles on his resume, Corvin acknowledged the paucity of research, and even added that none of the three was of much consequence.
But he added that he would trust the testimony of a psychiatrist who was practiced in taking patients, as he is, than one who focused only on research, referring to the prosecution’s experts. He mocked a prosecution expert, Park Dietz, for talking too much in his sessions with Bowers.
“The best way to” find out why someone committed a crime “is to keep your mouth shut, gently redirect, probe for details and keep your mouth shut,” he said.
He also told Judy Clark, the lead defense lawyer, that Bowers admired the prosecution lawyers more than he did his own defense team.
“He is happier with what they are doing than honestly what you are doing,” he told Clark. “He knows they want him to die but what’s more important is that they are distributing his message, the ‘truth.’”
Bowers has betrayed nothing during the trial, which began on April 24, seated at the second seat on the left at the long table on the left side of the courtroom. Not through three weeks of jury selection, not through the two weeks of the trial to establish guilt, not at his June 16 conviction, not on July 13 when the jurors decided his crimes merited the death penalty, and not since then as they consider whether he deserves death.
Bowers was convicted on 63 counts in connection with the attack, 22 of them eligible for the death penalty. The victims were Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger. They worshiped at three congregations housed in the building at the time: Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light.
Bowers, always clad in a dark sweater — sometimes navy blue, other times slate gray — and a collared light-blue shirt — never looks at the jury or the witnesses; the one exception was when he stood to receive his guilty verdict, and then it was for just a few seconds, heeding Judge Robert Colville’s instruction.
As he has with other defense experts, Olshan sought to undercut Corvin by questioning his expertise on antisemitism and extremism. Corvin knew his extremists — he said he has testified in Ku Klux Klan relate cases — but flubbed one reference, which Olshan, who is Jewish, seized upon.
The reference came during an interview when Corvin asked Bowers about his post on Gab, just prior to carrying out the massacre, “Screw the optics, I’m going in.”
“Forgot last line enjoy the Shoah,” the notation said. Olshan asked Corvin to explain. Corvin said Bowers regretted not adding the line to the Gab post.
What does “Shoah” mean? Olshan asked Corvin.
“It’s intended to be a derogatory slur against Jews,” Corvin said.
Shoah is the Hebrew word for catastrophe and is used as a synonym for the Holocaust, when the Nazis and their collaborators murdered 6 million Jews in Europe. “Do you know it’s a reference to the Holocaust?” Olshan said, sounding slightly stunned.
“I didn’t know that,” Corvin said.
Closing arguments are expected Tuesday and Wednesday, with a decision about Bowers’ fate coming soon after that.
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Anti-Zionists Are Excluding LGBTQ+ Jews From Pride Spaces, New Report Says
Jews of Pride members are seen marching in the Pride parade 2025, part of LGBTQ+ community’s Midsumma Festival. Photo: Alexander Bogatyrev / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect.
Anti-Israel activists in the LGBTQ+ community are subjecting Zionist Jews to extreme levels of discrimination, including expulsions from major progressive groups and even physical assault, according to a new report by the nonprofit A Wider Bridge.
The release of the report — titled “Unsafe Spaces: Addressing Antisemitism Against LGBTQ+ Jews and Ensuring Pride Safety” — comes as LGBTQ community members across the Western world observe Pride Month, a period of festivities which celebrate the expansion of social and legal rights that have allowed gays to live more freely and authentically than ever in human history. For pro-Israel Jews, however, Pride Month 2025 is a challenging moment, as anti-Zionism has creeped into and crowded out many queer spaces which once welcomed them with open arms.
From online forums to the streets, the maltreatment and “erasure” of Jewish queer identity is severe, the report explains. Eighty-two percent of LGBTQ Jews have reported being expelled from social media channels or harassed on them, A Wider Bridge noted.
Earlier this year, NYC Dyke March, a public demonstration held by members of the lesbian community in New York City, banned self-proclaimed “Zionists” from its annual event, citing a desire to stand against the so-called “genocide” occurring in Gaza. Last year, the NYC Dyke March came under scrutiny after organizers settled on “genocide” as the theme of its 2024 event. In a statement, decrying “ethnic cleansing, violence, and dehumanization,” the organization compared the ongoing war in Gaza, to mass killings occurring in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Sudan.
Also in 2024, the Dyke March Committee formally barred “Zionists” from participating in the Pride March, and during the event Jews were attacked and heckled after being seen wearing the Star of David on their clothing. That same year, an LGBTQ-friendly bar in the Brooklyn borough of New York City refused to hold a screening party for the Eurovision talent competition due to the participation of an Israeli contestant.
Forced, mass exiles are taking place in response to this new reality, the report added. Forty-three percent of queer Jews say they are leaving online forums; 40 percent abstain from participating in LGBTQ social events; and 30 percent said their decision was driven by precipitous deterioration of the manner in which they are treated. The only conclusion to draw, the report said, is that the Pride movement is “no longer universally safe or inclusive.”
“What we have found since Oct. 7 and what the report points to is that the explosion of antisemitism that the whole Jewish community has experienced has in some ways grown even more exponentially in the LGBTQ community,” Rabbi Denise Eger, interim executive director of A Wider Bridge and former president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, told The Algemeiner during an interview on Friday. “What we’re seeing around now as Pride marches and organizations put on their celebration s is institutional discrimination and outright boycotts.”
Eger went on to note that antisemitism in LGBTQ communities is all the more distressing due to the outsized contributions, legal and political, which Jewish gays and lesbians have made towards fostering a society that is more inclusive of non-heteronormative identities and relationships.
“Look at who were the early leaders of the LGBTQ civil rights movement — Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials in the US, was a Jewish man. Edith Windsor, who brought one of the first marriage equality cases that we won at the Supreme Court, and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who won it — these are LGBTQ heroes, not just LGBTQ ‘Jewish’ heroes and heroines,” Eger continued. “So, for LGBTQ Jews to be continually shut out of these spaces is paralyzing, shocking, and horrifying, and LGBTQ Jews are asking where is their home.”
She added, “These are difficult times, but together, the whole Jewish community, including the LGBTQ part of the Jewish community, can stand strong and be resilient in the face of all this, just as the Jewish people have done throughout our history. We have the tools within our tradition to keep us strong and to help us educate. And yes, I believe so much, as a rabbi, that we can and must help change the world for the better. That’s what we are called to do as the Jewish people.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, recorded incidents of antisemitism in the US continue to increase year over year, breaking all previous annual records.
In 2024, as reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) annual audit, there were 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, creating an atmosphere of hate not experienced in the nearly thirty years since the ADL began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL’s data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“Hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” said Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment
Illustrative: A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
A court in the United Kingdom on Thursday sentenced Hussein Altamimi, 22, and Ali Alanzi, 30, to prison sentences of eight months and seven months respectively, for charges stemming from an incident at London’s Western Marble Arch Synagogue in November 2024, according to British media.
The two men received convictions for yelling at four Jewish worshipers such phrases as “Jews aren’t welcome here,” “you don’t belong here,” and “f—king Jew.” They also repeatedly screamed “free Palestine.”
The incident grew violent when Altamimi hit one victim’s arm to try and prevent her from filming the abuse. Alanzi also hurled liquid from an alcoholic drink toward one person. When police arrived to arrest the pair, he assaulted one of the officers.
The court convicted both men of four counts of religiously aggravated public order offenses and religiously aggravated assault. Alanzi also received a conviction for attacking the officer and will endure an additional 12 weeks’ incarceration due to a previous suspended sentence.
On Friday, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) described its reaction to the hate crime prosecutions on X in one word: “Vindicated.”
Altamimi also faced additional charges and guilty verdicts related to a July 2023 incident which included racial abuse and striking a police officer.
“The CPS is working closely with the police to tackle hate crime, making sure that perpetrators who target victims because of their religion, race, sexuality, gender identity, or disability are brought to justice,” Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Anna Hindmarsh said following the trial. “We know that hate crimes have a significant impact on victims and the wider community, and we will continue to support victims and witnesses who come forward to report any examples of hate crime they have experienced.”
The convictions against Altamimi and Alanzi are part of a historic surge in antisemitic acts in the United Kingdom.
The UK experienced its second-worst year for antisemitism in 2024, despite recording an 18 percent drop in antisemitic incidents from the previous year’s all-time high, according to a report released in February.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, released data showing it recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, a drop of 18 percent from the 4,296 in 2023. These numbers compare to 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
In the 12 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, CST counted 5,583 antisemitic incidents in the UK, an increase from 204 percent from the same period the previous year.
Many of the incidents involved violence targeting the Jewish community.
Last month, On May 26, a group of six or seven men attacked three Jewish boys at the Hampstead Underground Station in North London, requiring hospitalization for one. CAA said that “this report is yet another stark reminder of the growing threat facing Jewish communities, including children.”
Another antisemitic assault occurred in Manchester in February, when an unidentified individual hit a Jewish man with what was believed to be a bottle, shattering the victim’s glasses.
The heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Stamford Hill in Hackney saw an antisemitic act last week when vandals targeted a Jewish-owned investment firm, smashing its windows and splashing red paint. The group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for the crime, as it had done previously for similar acts at the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund headquarters and the BBC’s New Broadcasting House.
“This should be treated as [an] antisemitic incident without any doubt. [The owners] are visibly Jewish people; the people who run the business and this business itself have nothing to do with Israel,” said Rabbi Herschel Gluck, president of Jewish security service Shomrim’s branch in Stamford Hill.
Days earlier, residents of Brighton in southeastern England discovered antisemitic vandalism at a memorial created to honor the victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks.
“There have been over 40 attacks on the site including vandalism, theft, and graffiti. The abuse has been relentless,” Heidi Bachram, who volunteers to maintain the memorial, told The Jewish Chronicle at the time. “It’s shocking that grief for innocents is met with such violence. The hate won’t stop us, and every night, a different victim’s story will be told [at the memorial]. We will never let them be forgotten.”
In April, according to prosecutors, Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 33, attempted to climb a wall outside of the Israeli embassy in London while carrying a “martyrdom note.”
Prosecutor Kristel Pous said that Albadri told police that he wanted to “do something to send a message to the Israeli government to stop the war.”
The Israeli embassy stated in response to the foiled attack that “we thank the British security forces for their immediate response and ongoing efforts to secure the embassy.” It vowed that “the embassy of Israel will not be deterred by any terror threat and will continue to represent Israel with pride in the UK.”
The post Two UK Men Convicted, Jailed Following November Antisemitic Harassment first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Large Pro-Israel Event in Texas ‘Indefinitely Postponed’ Due to Threats of Terrorism
A protester holds a sign that reads, ”From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” during a pro-Palestinian emergency demonstration outside the Consulate General of Israel in Houston, Texas, on March 19, 2025. Photo: Reginald Mathalone via Reuters Connect
The 2025 Israel Summit in Dallas, Texas has been indefinitely postponed in response to what organizers described as intensifying threats of terrorism.
Prior to the cancellation, the event was expecting over 1,000 attendees. The Israel Summit had already undergone a last-minute venue change due to mounting safety concerns. The gathering, scheduled for June 9–11, was set to feature prominent voices from both the Jewish and Christian pro-Israel communities.
Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who had been scheduled to speak at the event, commented on the cancellation on social media: “This is what America looks like in 2025. A peaceful pro-Israel gathering with more than a thousand participants had to be scrapped because of threats from violent extremists.”
Ten days prior to this year’s event, local police and intelligence officials in Dallas alerted organizers that the gathering had been upgraded to a “high-threat event.”
According to Josiah Hilton, host of the Israel Guys show, which was scheduled to co-host the event with HaYovel, the organizers had to produce “a mandatory security plan with a substantial budget estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The organizers then moved the Israel Summit to a facility in an isolated area of Kenneth, Texas. However, the event was forced to cancel after the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and Jewish Voice for Peace, a pair of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas organizations, revealed its location to their followers.
“[T]he Genocide Summit had to change plans last minute in desperation due to them claiming to be ‘under attack.’ The reality is they understand DFW’s commitment to confronting the extremist ideology that is Zionism,” Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas wrote on Instagram.
However, the organizers stated that they are going to hold the pro-Israel event “in the near future,” and vowed to “come back bigger and stronger, with more people.”
Hilton said that the cancellation reflects “the growing normalization of antisemitic threats and anti-Israel extremists, which are fueling intimidation and silencing voices of support for Israel across the United States.”
The cancellation of the Israel Summit also reflects growing concern regarding potential violence against supporters of the Jewish state. Last month, two Israeli embassy staffers, Yaron Lipschinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were murdered while exiting an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. Then this past Sunday, an assailant firebombed a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado, injuring 15 people and a dog.
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