“Coming Together in Community is the Cure”: Grant Oliphant Writes After the Tree of Life Shooting 

One of philanthropy’s responses to the horrific Oct. 27 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that left 11 people dead came from Grant Oliphant, president of The Heinz Endowments, in a blog post called We are the Cure. 

We are becoming so inured to these moments that we risk forgetting the totality of what is happening around us. Violent, right-wing extremism is on the rise in America. Just now, in the days before this attack, a white supremacist murdered two elderly black shoppers at a grocery store in Louisville. Another white supremacist mailed bombs to multiple current and former elected and government officials and wealthy donors critical of the President. The tale of terrorism in America today is the tale of armed white supremacists increasingly emboldened to commit acts of brutal violence.

Oliphant ends his post stating “there is a sickness in the human heart,” and expressing love and coming together in community are the cure. He then calls to action:

Embracing each other in all our differences as one people—that, most assuredly, is the cure. But love comes with accountability. It demands more and better of us than indifference and silence.

Read the full post here.