A nation in need of repair

Hate is ascendant, but decency has not surrendered

Mourners.
(Image credit: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

This is the editor’s letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

When the white nationalist accused of killing 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue last week arrived at an emergency room with several bullet wounds, he shouted, "I want to kill all the Jews!" The doctor and the nurse waiting to treat Robert Bowers at Allegheny General Hospital were Jewish; the hospital's president, Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, belongs to the Tree of Life congregation Bowers attacked. They tended to Bowers as they would any patient. "We're here to take care of sick people," Cohen said. "You do what you think is right." Cohen made a point of talking to Bowers, to see what kind of person could turn an AR-15 on grandfathers and grandmothers and two disabled men. He saw not a monster, but "a very lost guy" who'd listened to the "noise" telling him that white, Christian America was being invaded by Jews, by a caravan of Central Americans, by foreign vermin. "Words mean things," Cohen said. "Words are leading people to do things like this."

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William Falk

William Falk is editor-in-chief of The Week, and has held that role since the magazine's first issue in 2001. He has previously been a reporter, columnist, and editor at the Gannett Westchester Newspapers and at Newsday, where he was part of two reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes.