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Defense rests in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial without calling witnesses or presenting evidence
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — Defense attorneys in the trial of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter will not be calling witnesses or presenting evidence in court, following 11 days of harrowing testimony from witnesses called by the prosecution.
The defense attorneys’ choice underscores their acknowledgement that their client committed the attack. Since the beginning of the trial, lead defense attorney Judy Clarke has made clear that her goal is to prevent the shooter, Robert Bowers, from being sentenced to death.
Judge Robert Colville dismissed the jury on Wednesday and told jurors to return on Thursday to hear closing arguments, after which the jury will deliberate and deliver its verdict. The defendant is almost certain to be found guilty, and his sentence — which will be determined in the next phase of the trial — will depend on whether the jury finds him guilty on all 63 counts he faces or just some of them. Of those charges, 22 carry the death penalty — two for each of his 11 victims.
The anticlimactic conclusion of the proceedings on Wednesday followed 11 days of graphic testimony from congregants and emergency responders who were present when the gunman perpetrated the shooting in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood on Oct. 27, 2018. The synagogue he attacked housed three congregations: Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash.
Witnesses have described how the shooting unfolded, detail by tragic detail — and have explained the Jewish rituals and practices interrupted and desecrated by the attack. Other witnesses, including 911 call center employees and law enforcement, have recounted how they responded to the shooting.
Clarke and her team have cross-examined witnesses but revealed on Thurday that they would not be calling any of their own.
“We have no evidence,” Clarke said after Colville turned to her following the prosecution’s last witness. In her opening remarks on May 30, Clark had said that the defense team would not contest that its client committed the shooting.
“There is no disagreement, there is no dispute and there will be no doubt as to who shot the 11 congregants,” she said then. “On Oct. 27, 2018, Robert Bowers, the man seated at that table, loaded with ammunition and firearms entered the synagogue.”
Clarke is famous for keeping her clients off of death row and hopes to achieve the same result here. Her argument to jurors is that her client targeted the congregants not because of their religion, but because of a delusion that they were facilitating an immigration invasion to replace white people.
“We can at least do our best to uphold the rule of law by figuring out, to the best of our ability, what were Mr. Bowers’ motives and intent,” Clarke said in her opening statement.
The prosecution wrapped up its case before lunch on Wednesday with testimony from Andrea Wedner, one of two worshippers who were injured by gunfire in the shooting and survived. Wedner was with her mother, Rose Mallinger, when the gunman entered the chapel. Mallinger, who was 97, was killed in the attack.
Acting U.S. Attorney Troy Rivetti asked Wedner if the gunman had kept her from worshipping — the same question the prosecution has posed to other survivors who took the stand.
That question is key to half of the 22 capital charges the gunman faces: Federal law allows the death penalty in cases “of obstruction in free exercise of religious belief resulting in death.” The other 11 capital charges are for hate crimes resulting in death.
“Did you go there to worship and pray?” Rivetti asked Wedner. “Did the defendant prevent you from praying? Did the defendant come into the chapel and shoot you? Your mother, Rose Mallinger, who prayed the prayer for peace each week, was shot right next to you?”
Wedner answered “Yes” each time, with increasing emotion.
The defense rarely objected during the trial, only doing so to argue that testimony was inappropriately veering into how American Jews worship, or into what animates Jewish practice. Nearly all of the defense’s objections during the trial were overruled.
After the jury exited the courtroom on Wednesday, the defense continued arguing that their client did not seek to kill Jews while they worshipped. Speaking before the judge, defense attorneys raised objections to the phrasing of some of the charges the jury would consider.
They tried, as they had previously, to have the words “willfully” and “because of actual or perceived religion” removed from the 11 capital charges that have to do with obstruction of worship resulting in death. Colville overruled the objections.
Wedner asked not to be on the stand when the prosecution played back her 911 call from the day of the shooting in court. Instead, Rivetti asked her a series of questions about the call before she left the chamber.
“Have you actually requested that we not play that 911 call while you’re on the stand?” Rivetti asked.
“Yes,” Wedner said.
“Is that because you can hear yourself being shot?”
“Yes.”
“Is it because you can hear your mother’s quiet voice as you try to comfort her?”
“Yes.”
“Is it because you can hear her being shot?”
“Yes.” Wedner’s voice cracked.
The recording of the call played out as Rivetti had described: Werner’s whispered pleadings to a 911 operator, silence, and then two gun blasts and screams. Rivetti stopped the replay about halfway through the 9-minute recording.
During her testimony, Wedner described sensing police were in the sanctuary, and moving her legs to signal she was alive. “They were in fatigues so I knew they were the good guys,” she said.
She rose and realized she was the lone survivor in the sanctuary where the Tree of Life congregation regularly convened.
Before she left, she bid her mother goodbye.
“I kissed my fingers and I touched my fingers to her skin,” she said. “I cried out, ‘Mommy.’”
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The data is in: For many in the Northeast, Christmas isn’t Christmas without Chinese food
It’s not just a myth that Jews head to Chinese restaurants on Christmas. It’s science!
Sort of. A new report from the financial services company Coventry Direct claims to have quantified the trend. The report analyzed search data for “Chinese food near me” during the week of Christmas from 2020 to 2024, and found that the Northeast dominated the results.
The top five states included Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire, while New York, which is home to the largest Jewish population in the country, came in seventh place. Under the assumption that Jews are overrepresented in the Northeast, the study confirms that Coventry Direct is not peer-reviewed.
The study also analyzed Google search trends over the past year to find the top-searched Chinese food dish in each state. While Szechuan chicken was the most popular dish, taking first place in eight states, New York’s most searched item was Buddha’s Delight, a — IYKYK — vegetarian stew.
The Jewish Christmas tradition was famously referenced during Elena Kagan’s United States Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2010 when she was asked where she was on Christmas day:
“You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant,” replied Kagan.
In recent years around Christmas, social media has also been flooded with images of a sign where the seemingly fictional “Chinese Restaurant Association” of America thanks its Jewish diners for their patronage.
“The Chinese Restaurant Association of the United States would like to extend our thanks to the Jewish people,” the sign reads. “We do not completely understand your dietary customs … but we are proud and grateful that your GOD insist you eat our food on Christmas.”
Two men enjoy Chinese cuisine prepared by Chinese chefs within the guidelines of kosher food preparation at a restaurant. (Getty Images)
But the now-ubiquitous tradition of Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas traces back to the early 20th century, when Jewish immigrants began carving out distinctly American rituals of their own. If for no other reasons, Chinese restaurants were more likely to be open on Christmas.
A classic 1993 study on the tradition, “New York Jews and Chinese Food: The Social Construction of an Ethnic Pattern,” by Gaye Tuchman and Harry Levine, traced the Jewish affinity for Chinese food to a few factors: Chinese restaurants at the time “welcomed everyone,” offered flavors familiar to an Eastern European Jewish palate and were considered a “sophisticated” dining experience for new-ish, Jewish Americans stepping outside their comfort zones.
While Chinese restaurants do not typically offer kosher fare, Tuchman and Levine also argued that Chinese restaurants were viewed as “safe treyf” because Chinese cuisine rarely mixes milk and meat and ingredients like pork and shrimp are chopped into hard-to-identify pieces.
To celebrate the longstanding tradition, a comedy club in New York’s East Village is set to host “Kosher Chinese: The Comedy Show,” with patrons enjoying kosher dumplings and an “unapologetically alternative holiday spirit we all secretly love.” In San Francisco, the 33rd Annual Kung Pao Kosher Comedy show kicks off tonight, and runs through Friday, Dec. 26.
From Massachusetts to Ohio, Jewish delis have also planned their own Chinese-inspired menus to mark the tradition.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post The data is in: For many in the Northeast, Christmas isn’t Christmas without Chinese food appeared first on The Forward.
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StopAntisemitism names Tucker Carlson ‘Antisemite of the Year’ as 2024 winner Candace Owens ramps up anti-Jewish rhetoric
(JTA) — The activist group StopAntisemitism has awarded the conservative personality Tucker Carlson its ignominious honor of “Antisemite of the Year,” citing his frequent invocation of classic antisemitic stereotypes.
The announcement comes as Carlson sits at the center of controversy on the American right about whether extremists should be welcomed in the Republican Party. It also marks the second year in a row that StopAntisemitism has selected a right-wing figure for its accolade, after years of awarding the mantle to mostly left-wing figures.
“Carlson mainstreams antisemitism by platforming and praising Holocaust revisionists and Nazi apologists, while hiding behind irony and plausible deniability,” the group said in a statement. “By legitimizing extremist voices and weaponizing conspiratorial imagery at massive scale, he has helped drag antisemitic ideas back into the mainstream.”
A watchdog presence with more than 300,000 followers on X, StopAntisemitism regularly mobilizes against activists and social media posts. The group has faced criticism for what some perceive as an inordinate focus on Muslim personalities, pro-Palestinian actions and non-prominent individuals. Its defenders deny that, pointing out that StopAntisemitism also regularly spotlights neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers on the right.
Its finalists for Antisemite of the Year included pro-Palestinian celebrities Ms. Rachel, Cynthia Nixon and Marcia Cross; mixed-martial-arts athlete and Holocaust denier Bryce Mitchell; two personalities associated with left-wing network The Young Turks; and social media personalities on both the far left (Guy Christensen) and far right (Stew Peters).
Carlson received the accolade on Sunday night, at the end of a weekend in which he was a keynote speaker at the convention of Turning Point USA, the young-conservatives group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this fall. In its announcement, StopAntisemitism noted Carlson’s speech at Kirk’s memorial service, in which he described the murder of Jesus in a way that both his critics and fans interpreted as implying that Jews or Israelis had been behind Kirk’s assassination.
At the convention, the Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro continued his campaign against Carlson and Carlson declared himself to free of the anti-Jewish animus that he has long been criticized as propagating.
“Let me just affirm one final time. Not only am I not an antisemite — and I would say so if I was — I’m not an antisemite for a very specific reason,” Carlson said in his speech. “Not because it’s unpopular or my donors don’t like it. I don’t have any donors. I’m not an antisemite because anti-semitism is immoral in my religion. It is immoral to hate people for how they were born.”
It was the same explanation that Vice President JD Vance offered earlier this month when he said in an NBC News interview that he believed antisemitism is wrong.
In his own speech to Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, Vance again refrained from criticizing extremists in the Republican Party, saying that he opposes “purity tests” for inclusion in the conservative movement. He also said he believed that antisemitism in the United States was being fueled by “a real backlash” against U.S. aid to Israel..
As the convention was underway, last year’s “Antisemite of the Year,” the right-wing streamer Candace Owens, embarked on a four-hour broadcast eviscerating Shapiro; amplifying antisemitic theories, including that Jews controlled the slave trade; and promoting a classic work of antisemitism by August Rohling, a German Catholic who believed in the blood libel and argued that the Talmud is a secret guide used by Jews for nefarious purposes. Rohling died in 1931.
The post StopAntisemitism names Tucker Carlson ‘Antisemite of the Year’ as 2024 winner Candace Owens ramps up anti-Jewish rhetoric appeared first on The Forward.
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Senior Hamas Official Vows Terror Group Will Never Disarm, Rejects Foreign Pressure
Hamas official Osama Hamdan speaks during a press conference, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon, June 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Hamas has once again rejected calls to disarm, warning against “foreign interference in Palestinian affairs” as the terrorist group’s senior officials met with Turkish leaders to discuss the next phase of the US-backed peace plan for Gaza.
In an interview with the Yemeni news outlet Al-Masirah on Tuesday, Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan reiterated that the Islamist group will never hand over its weapons to foreign powers.
“The resistance rejects any foreign attempt to disarm us or seize the weapons the occupation failed to take,” the terrorist leader said. “The idea of surrendering our arms is one the resistance will never accept.”
“In the second phase of the Gaza agreement, the guarantees must be clearer, and the commitments more detailed,” Hamdan continued. “The Zionist enemy does not abide by the agreement. Israel’s failure to open the [humanitarian] crossings signals its intention to resume aggression against the Gaza Strip.”
On Wednesday, senior Hamas officials met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara to discuss the ongoing ceasefire and coordinate the next steps in advancing the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the two-year conflict.
“The Americans want to impose hegemony on the region, with the Zionist entity [Israel] as its foundation,” Hamdan said during the interview. “Disarming the resistance would give Israel absolute control over the entire region.”
“The resistance is capable of continuing the fight, and I am confident the outcome of this conflict will be the demise of this entity,” he continued.
According to media reports, Hamas officials told Turkish counterparts they had fulfilled their ceasefire commitments, but accused Israel of violating the deal while blocking progress to the next phase of the agreement.
Since the start of the ceasefire in October, both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violations. Israel has carried out several operations targeting terrorist operatives as the Palestinian group ramps up efforts to reassert control over the war-torn enclave.
According to the US-backed peace plan, the second phase is expected to establish an interim administrative authority — a so-called “technocratic government” — deploy an International Stabilization Force (ISF) to take over security in Gaza, and begin the demilitarization of Hamas.
However, efforts to advance the ceasefire deal have stalled, with no agreement on crucial next steps, including the start of reconstruction in the enclave and the deployment of the ISF.
Turkey, a longtime backer of Hamas, has been trying to expand its role in Gaza’s post-war reconstruction efforts, which experts warn could potentially strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
While Turkey insists on participating in the ISF, Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected any Turkish involvement in post-war Gaza.
Turkey has even sought to shield Hamas from disarmament by pushing for the terrorist group to hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority or place them in secure international storage, rather than requiring it to disarm.
Israeli officials have rejected these options as unacceptable, arguing they would allow the terrorist group to maintain its influence in Gaza, which Hamas has ruled for nearly two decades.
Under phase one of Trump’s peace plan, Hamas was required to release all remaining hostages, both living and deceased, who were kidnapped by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during the group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In exchange, Israel freed thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for terrorism, and partially withdrew its military forces in Gaza to a newly drawn “Yellow Line,” roughly dividing the enclave between east and west.
According to the ceasefire plan, the Israeli army is required to withdraw further as the disarmament process unfolds. However, Israel has made clear that it will not pull back until Hamas disarms and other conditions are met.
Currently, the Israeli military controls 53 percent of Gaza’s territory, and Hamas has moved to reestablish control over the other 47 percent. However, the vast majority of the Gazan population is located in the Hamas-controlled half, where the Islamist group has been imposing a brutal crackdown.
Since the ceasefire took effect two months ago, Hamas has targeted Palestinians who it labeled as “lawbreakers and collaborators with Israel,” sparking widespread clashes and violence as the group moves to seize weapons and eliminate any opposition.