Museum to open Friday
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum will re-open Friday morning, although it won't be a typical day.
Chief of Staff Bill Parsons said the entire staff will meet in the morning, and the museum will provide counseling to anyone who requests it.
At an interfaith solidarity gathering Thursday afternoon outside the museum, Parsons said the "spontaneous outpouring" since the shooting attack "means a great deal to us" and "means a lot to the family" of Stephen Johns, the security officer killed Wednesday.
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AJC sets up fund for family of Officer Johns
The American Jewish Committee's Washington, D.C. chapter has set up a memorial fund to benefit the family of Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, who was killed Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The organization said it will soon have a place on its Web site where one can contribute, but those who want to donate immediately should send checks made out to the American Jewish Committee, with "Holocaust Museum Memorial Fund" in the memo line, to:
American Jewish Committee, Washington Chapter
C/O Melanie Maron
1156 15th Street, NW, Suite 1201
Washington DC 20005
One hundred percent of the contribution will go to the Johns family.
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The shooter and the hero
According to a report from The Washington Post, in a media briefing Thursday, Bill Parsons, chief of staff at the Holocaust museum, said that security officer Stephen Johns went out of his way to open the door of the museum for James W. von Brunn yesterday, not realizing that the 88-year-old white supremacist was armed and intending to shoot him.
"Stephen opened that door for the elderly man coming in -- he was caring about him, and he opened the door and he was shot," Parsons said at a news briefing.
The Post profiled the slain security guard:
Friends and colleagues called Stephen T. Johns "Big John," for he was well over 6 feet tall. But mostly they recalled the security guard's constant courtesy and friendliness.
"A soft-spoken, gentle giant," said Milton Talley, a former employee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where Johns was killed yesterday in the line of duty -- shot, authorities said, by an avowed white supremacist who entered the museum with a rifle.
"A wonderful individual . . . a truly jovial human being," museum director Sara J. Bloomfield said on this morning on NBC's "Today" show. ...
Read the full profile.
And the newspaper also took a comprehensive look at the shooter, describing him as an "avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite" who had recently declared that it was "time to kill all the Jews":
James W. von Brunn was growing despondent.
John de Nugent, an acquaintance who describes himself as a white separatist, noticed the change when they last spoke two weeks ago.
"He said his Social Security had been cut and that he was barely making it," de Nugent said. "He felt it was the direct result of someone in Washington looking at his Web site."
In one of his e-mail blasts expressing his white supremacist views, the man police sources say shot and killed a security guard yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum told readers that they shouldn't expect to hear from him again. Von Brunn was shot and critically wounded by museum guards.
He was about to give away his computer, his primary connection to the fringe world of radical racists. He was living hand to mouth.
The e-mails were getting violent in tone: "It's time to kill all the Jews." ...
Click here to read the full story.
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Four commentaries
The Washington Post/Newsweek religion Web site has published four short commentaries on the shooting:
Jonathan Sarna (professor, Brandeis University): "It's open season on Jews," one of my friends remarked upon hearing the news of the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. The response, I first thought, sounded like typical Jewish paranoia. The alleged shooter was an 88- year-old white supremacist fanatic operating alone, and his only victim, in the end, was a non-Jewish security guard. Why magnify an isolated incident into an incipient pogrom? But, on second thought, isn't this the third "isolated incident" directed against Jews in just over a month? ...
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite (professor, Chicago Theological Seminary): Conservative America ridiculed the Department of Homeland Security when it issued a report just two months ago that warned right-wing extremism was likely to rise in this country due to economic and political changes. The report was aptly titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." In it, the DHS specifically talked about the "potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks." ... I have come to the place where I feel we need to demand that the conservative talkers who stoke hatred be included as we analyze this rise in hate-based extremism in the United States. We need to ask what responsibility do the professional media haters have for helping to create the climate of hate and fear that turns fear and loathing as "political commentary" into shooting and murder? I have been dismissing the Rush Limbaugh's or Sean Hannity's in our country because they have seemed to me to be beneath contempt (and so obviously wrong all the time). But after reading the DHS report, as I did today, I believe I have changed my mind. ...
Susan Jacoby (author, "The Age of American Uneason"): Details about today's shooting at the Holocaust Museum are sketchy, but it is reasonable to assume that the shooter hated Jews--just as it was reasonable to assume that the gunman who assassinated Dr. George Tiller hated anyone who provided legal abortions to women. What more is there to say? Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns is the latest hate crime victim. We live in a nation in which any lunatic motivated by racial, religions, political, or just plain personal hatred can buy a gun and use it. ... Our craven politicians refuse to do anything about the access of these people to firearms, and the damage they have done to our social fabric, over and over, will continue. John F. Kennedy. Martin Luther King. Robert F. Kennedy. Dr. Tiller. Now Stephen T. Johns, a police officer just doing his job. Why are we always "shocked" when such crimes occur? Mean and crazy people with guns kill people. You can't eliminate mean and crazy people, but you can impede their ability to buy deadly weapons.
Sharon Brous (rabbi, IKAR, a Jewish spiritual community in Los Angeles): ... Surely these acts of violence - tragic and terrifying - remind us that hatred of Jews remains a potent and dangerous reality. But it would be far too easy for us to respond to the horror of this shooting with cynicism or despair. It would be a double tragedy if this serves only to reinforce our sense that the world is against us and we therefore need to withdraw from dialogue and fortify against an ever-present enemy intent on destroying us. ... We cannot allow acts of violence to distract us from this vision. I found it deeply heartening that within a couple of hours of this shooting I received several press-releases from local and national Muslim organizations condemning the attack, standing in solidarity with the Jewish community and repudiating the hatred and intolerance that lead to murder. Even as we grieve, let us keep our eyes on the prize. We are indeed at the dawn of a new day, and must remain fully dedicated to courageously walking the path toward understanding, healing and peace.
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The Obama/Jewish effect
Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin: "The "Obama effect ... [has] generated a backlash of white supremacy," Northeastern criminologist Jack Levin told CNN Wednesday. "Jews and blacks in the White House – that's threatening to someone who believes that blacks are subhuman and Jews are the children of the devil."
He makes the same point here in an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann:
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Jewish groups react: Gun control, security funding, extremism
The National Council for Jewish Women offered arguably the most politically provacative response from a Jewish organization to Wednesday's shooting, raising the gun-control issue and invoking the recent killing of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller:
“The shooting today at the US Holocaust Museum is a dreadful reminder of the poisonous connection between hate and gun violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of murdered security officer Stephen Johns.
“Following so soon after the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in his church during Sunday services, this latest attack cries out not only for condemnation by public officials, but a commitment to do everything in their power to prevent such incidents from multiplying including common-sense gun regulations. Yesterday, Dr. Tiller’s clinic was closed for good, a result that pleased anti-choice extremists. Today, people visiting a museum that bears witness to the ultimate result of untrammeled hate have been targeted.
“Violence of any kind is abhorrent. Hate violence seeks to not only wound or kill its target, but to intimidate and terrify the larger community. If the Dr. Tillers of this world are not safe, if the Holocaust Museum just blocks from the White House is not safe, then none of us is safe. We must proceed with vigilance and expediency to address all forms of hate, violence and intolerance in our country.”
The United Jewish Communities/ Jewish Federations of North America asserted that the incident underscored the need for federal security-funding grants for nonprofit organiztions:
... Such violence underscores the need for UJC/Jewish Federations of North America to continue supporting security for Jewish Federations and other institutions at heightened risk of threats. UJC was one of the first organizations seeking the creation of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) support for non-profit institutions at increased risk of attacks and has helped secure more than $55 million in grants for Jewish Federations and other communal institutions to improve physical security, preparedness planning, and training. ...
UJC began advocating for the creation and funding of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program six years ago, which has become the only federal program designed specifically to address security at non-profits deemed at heightened risk of terrorist attacks.
"Since 9/11, UJC has diligently worked with the federal government to point out potential threats against the Jewish community and to work to arm Federations, synagogues, and community centers with the resources they need to improve their security infrastructure," said William Daroff, Vice President for Public Policy & Director of the Washington Office of UJC/Jewish Federations of North America.
"Congress has consistently supported the Non-Profit Security Grant Program. As they begin drafting this year’s appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security, we strongly encourage their consideration of these latest outbursts in violence as proof of the need to increase funding to protect vulnerable populations from attack." ...
Here's what other Jewish organizations are saying:
- Abe Foxman (director, ADL): ... Brunn's evil attack, at the very place that was created to remember and teach about evil in the world, is an immediate reminder that words of hate matter, that we can never afford to ignore hate because words of hate can easily become acts of hate, no matter the place, no matter the age of the hatemonger. We express our support to the family of the victim of the attack. We recommit ourselves to expose and counter hatred in our society so that horrible events such as the shooting at the Holocaust Museum will no longer be a part of the fabric of our democracy.
- David Harris (executive director, American Jewish Committee): “Even though such heinous ideas remain marginal in our country, today’s tragic event is a reminder of the need to both remain vigilant and teach the value of tolerance."
- Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper (dean and associate dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center): "The attack that took place at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington by James von Brunn, a self-identified anti-Semite, white supremacist, and hater of African-Americans shows that the cancer of hatred, bigotry and anti-Semitism is alive and well in America."
- Eric Yoffie (president, Union for Reform Judaism): "That today’s shooting at the United States Holocaust Museum should take place at a site expressly created to teach the world about the destruction and devastation brought about by human evil deepens the resonance of this terrible act."
- Jeremy Ben-Ami (executive director, J Street): We are shocked and outraged at the brutal attack perpetrated against the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and what it represents. Yesterday’s attack is a tragic reminder of the need to combat all forms of anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, racism, and bigotry. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this despicable act of hatred and violence. We also commend the security guards who acted quickly to prevent further bloodshed, especially Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns, whose sacrifice and courage will not be forgotten.
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We don’t own this tragedy
Over at The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg snipes at gun-control interlopers who want to stake out a claim to yesterday's Holocaust Museum shooting:
Today shouldn't be about the gun-control debate or any of the other usual debates. Today should be about two things: Remembering a victim of terrorism, and thinking about what in this world would make someone commit an act of intolerance and violence against a museum built to remind people of the dangers of intolerance and violence. Also, perhaps, the timelessness of the mental illness known as anti-Semitism.
Well, no; I'd imagine that the trauma suffered by the victims of gun violence would be stoked by the alleged circumstance of a felon -- convicted of a violent crime involving guns, no less -- getting a gun and using it against innocents. If ponderings on the perpetuation of anti-Semitism l are appropriate, so is exploring how we can prevent its awful effects.
For instance, there's been some grumbling recently about the use of federal funds to protect Jewish institutions and others vulnerable to attack -- the argument against is that the money should be earmarked to track known terrorists. Yesterday's is an appropriate event to be used as exhibit A for the case for such funds to establish defenses against attackers who are essentially untrackable.
My peevishness on this issue dates to October of 2002, when I was working at the A.P. and seconded to sniper attacks coverage, along with much of the bureau.
I was assigned a stack of stories that now embarrass me, talking to rent-a-psychs speculating about the motives and character of the gunman. (White! Middle aged! No family! A loner! These people have no shame.)
The single speculative piece I did that was in any way vindicated had to do with whether the high-powered rifle used in the attacks should have been easily available. I called the gun control side, and then spent the day making repeat calls to the NRA that constantly ended up in voicemail limbo, until a peeved flack called me back. No, he said, he would not say anything for any kind of attribution, but off the record, and this better not appear in the story, was this really a time to talk about gun control? Families are in mourning!
Well, yes, I thought, and that sounds an awful lot like "we'd prefer addressing this issue when it's politically convenient." (I should have told him that out loud.) I wrote that the NRA declined comment and cast desperately around for a pro-gun voice, and finally found an NRA activist who lived in the Beltway area who agreed to talk (she hadn't got the keep shtum memo) - and who said essentially the same thing, but on the record (and good for her): Now was not the time to address this sensitive issue.
The next day, the NRA called my boss and complained that we had run a story on guns without seeking its comment. I told her that, yes, we had sought its comment, I had gone out of my way to get comment within the wire-service crunch, and that ended the matter as far as she was concerned. But it was clear that was how the lobby was going to play my story to its membership. "Bastard didn't even call us!"
I use this story, by the way, anytime someone chimes in about the awful evilness and evil awfulness of the "Israel lobby." I've had great days with AIPAC, and not so great days - but they never, ever tried anything this underhand. Not even close.
As it turns out, the availability of such weapons was very much an issue in the case.
The immediate aftermath of a tragedy is exactly the right time to talk about its causes, and no single group has the right to assign itself sole victim status.
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