Pittsburgh's cartoonists reflect the pain and compassion of a city after shooting the synagogue

ROB ROGERS spent Saturday, stuck to the tube, staring at the cover of the shootings in the Pittsburgh Synagogue and becoming sickened by the details of the anti-Semitic attack in the city that he has long called his home country. ;origin.

Rogers used to live in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, and he and his wife still live near his congregation, Tree of Life, where 11 people were killed by one armed man.

"We go there all the time," says the long-time Pittsburgh cartoonist about Squirrel Hill. "Our favorite bakery is here. One of our favorite cinemas is there. My art supply store is there. It is a beautiful wooded area that makes you forget that you are in the heart of a big city. "

Yet, initially, Rogers did not want to react quickly to the tragedy. As a unionized freelance, he did not face an imminent deadline, as he did for a quarter of a century in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, before the left-wing caricaturist was fired in June. middle of the ideological change of the newspaper.

"My first instinct was to wait and draw something the next day or Monday," Rogers told the Washington Post Comic Riffs. "It would give me more time to deal with the massacre and think about it. I did not want to rush into the comments.

"These are the most difficult caricatures to draw – the most difficult reporting stories to comment on," says Rogers, whose career over the last three decades has been an opportunity to comment on numerous terrorist attacks and massacres. "You can not use humor – one of the essential tools for a designer."

However, the longer Rogers watched the news coverage, the more his sense of urgency increased. "I realized that it was not just a collective shot, but a hate crime of historical proportions," he says. "I knew I could not wait."

Rogers has come up with a lot of Pittsburgh-themed ideas, but none of them have hit the mark. "I even drew a version of the Steelers logo with diamonds replaced by stars of David. It was too reductive, "he says, noting," Later, I saw a meme with a similar picture. It worked. Never mind."

To reflect anti-Semitic hatred, Rogers decided to invoke Kristallnacht as a historical allusion.

"I was a little hesitant to compare this violence to the Nazi attack of 1938 against Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. It's always risky to refer to Nazi Germany or the Holocaust, "Rogers said. "But when I heard that it was the worst attack on the Jews in American history, I felt it was worth it."

Randy Bish / Bishtoons 2018 (by Randy Bish / Bishtoons 2018)

"All of Pittsburgh's communities were built by honest, hard-working, honest people who would gladly give their neighbors a shirt if it helped them," says Bish, who still draws several drawings a week.

He created an editorial art that reflected a deep sense of compassion – a work that, like Rogers' cartoon, was quickly broadcast widely on social media over the weekend.

"Fred Rogers taught us to love, cherish and respect our neighbors," says Bish, referring to the recently missing children's TV host who lived in Squirrel Hill. "A look at the recent photo of the young child offering cookies to a police officer shows the compassion of the people of Pittsburgh.

"There is no room for hatred in this city," says Bish. "In the end, compassion will last."