“Pittsburgh Synagogue Attack Trial Begins as Anti-Semitic Acts Surge in the US”

The trial of the alleged perpetrator of a 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest against Jews in US history and for which he faces the death penalty, opened Tuesday in full outbreak of anti-Semitic acts in this country.

The selection of the jury of the federal court of Pennsylvania (northeast) had started on April 24 for a duration of four weeks and the trial really started on Tuesday to judge Robert Bowers, 50, prosecuted on 63 counts.

This white driver, who pleads not guilty, is accused in particular of having perpetrated 11 murders aggravated by the qualification of anti-Semitic act.

On October 27, 2018, he burst into the “Tree of Life” synagogue in Pittsburgh, armed with three pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle.

Shouting “all Jews must die,” he opened fire and killed 11 people, including a 97-year-old worshiper, in the midst of Shabbat ceremonies in a historic Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, committing the bloodiest attack on Jews in the UNITED STATES.

Before that, he had posted racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages on a far-right social network.

Then-President Republican Donald Trump had sought the death penalty for Mr. Bowers, a request followed up by the Justice Department and upheld after Democratic President Joe Biden began his term in office on January 20, 2021.

But while candidate Biden had pledged in 2020 to abolish the death penalty at the national level, this trial revives in the United States the debates around this supreme punishment still practiced in many American states.

As early as 2019, the Pittsburgh federal prosecutor had indicated that he would seek the death penalty for Robert Bowers, citing his “lack of remorse” and “his hatred and contempt” for Jews.

This trial, which should last until July according to the press, is being held in the context of an increase in racist and anti-Semitic acts in the United States, which have reached the highest level in 30 years, according to statistics from the federal police, the FBI, quoted in April by the Washington Post.

According to the American organization for the fight against anti-Semitism Anti Defamation League, the country had experienced a record number of 2,717 anti-Semitic acts in 2021 (assaults, verbal attacks, material damage, etc.), an increase of 34% on a year.

In 2022, this association counted 3,697 anti-Semitic acts (+ 36% over one year), unheard of since 1979, according to the Washington Post.