In the two days since a shooting massacre killed 11 people and left six other injured, two Muslim charities have raised more than $150,000 to help the families of victims.
Their crowdfunding campaign, created on the LaunchGood crowdfunding platform, was driven by Tarek El-Messidi, a Chicago activist who also raised $316,000 in a LaunchGood campaign last year to repair hundreds of Jewish headstones after they were vandalized. Two muslim groups, CelebrateMercy and MPower Change, helped back the recent campaign, which quickly surpassed the initial $25,000 goal.
“Putting our religious differences or even your political differences aside, the core of all of us is that we have a shared humanity,” El-Messidi told the New York Times. “We really wanted to reach out as human beings to help.”
On Saturday, a man entered the Tree of Life synagogue and began shooting with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing three women and eight men ranging in age from 54 to 97. A man wounded in a gun battle with police following the rampage, who had a record of anti-Semitic postings on social media, appeared in federal court Monday in a wheelchair and handcuffs and was ordered to be held without bail.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the massacre is the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history. President Trump is expected to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday, although more than 35,000 people have signed an open letter to Trump demanding he denounce white nationalism and “stop targeting and endangering all minorities” or he would not be welcome.
Other crowdfunding campaigns have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the Times said.