I recently wrote an article titled “On the Pittsburgh shooting: These are not isolated incidents,” which has gained a lot of controversy because of how I phrased my point. I want to clarify some of what I said, as many have perceived what I was saying in a way in which I did not intend. As a side note before I begin because this has been misinterpreted in some of the responses to my piece, I am a Jewish-American and a descendant of Holocaust victims.

The Pittsburgh shooting was an act of anti-Semitism. I would never deny that fact. And no, I am not an anti-Semite, but being from the Jewish community I felt a need to criticize an issue that was present from several responses I have seen to the attack. I am aware of multiple groups such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) which have provided support to other persecuted groups. However, I feel the actions of groups such as HIAS go unnoticed to me because of the relative silence of people within my own life to other instances of violence. I may be alone in this sentiment, but it is something that has been bothering me. Social media has become a major platform for voicing support for victims of persecution and I saw many people in my own life stating their support for a marginalized group for the first time after Pittsburgh. And the same can be said for pretty much any other persecuted group in America. We as a collective of persecuted, brutalized, disenfranchised and demeaned people, including, but not limited to, Jews, African-Americans, people in the LGBTQIA* community and Muslims, need to do better to be there for each other in the face of constant persecution. I felt the ability to criticize my own community, much like the op-ed “A call for (Asian) accountability” did, as I feel others from other groups should do for their own.

The events of this weekend were a horrific act of anti-Semitism, just as the shooting of two elderly black people in a Louisville, Ky. Kroger was a horrible act of racism. These types of tragedies are not independent of one another. They are all connected through America’s gross history of persecution. Anti-Semitism and racism are manifestations of the same continuum in America that have led to the historical examples of persecution I laid out in my article, the events of this past weekend and future acts of hatred which are all but guaranteed to occur. Those who voiced shock or surprise after the Pittsburgh shooting need to take a better look at their country’s past and present. A synagogue being shot up was one of the least surprising things I could have heard. What’s more surprising to me, given the fact that anti-Semitic hate crimes hit an all-time high after the 2016 election, is that something like this hadn’t already happened.

My objective with the article was to criticize all persecuted groups for what I have observed as a lack of intersectional support in the last few years in the wake of rising hatred against many different groups. Do I want to turn people against the Jewish community? No. What I wanted to voice is that we as Jews have a responsibility, because of our history of constant persecution, to be the first and foremost people in the fight for other groups and, in turn, they will stand by us in the face of anti-Semitism. It’s like the widely-quoted Martin Niemoller poem, which was also included in one of the responses to my original piece: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

My use of my own community to reiterate this point served less as a criticism of one group in particular, but rather as a mirror to myself and for others to look into. I was talking to the greater community, but furthermore I was deflecting the questions on myself: Where was I after Charleston, Pulse, Michael Brown or when other groups have been persecuted? Have I been doing enough to support other communities to expect them to support me? No, I have not. And anyone who comes to a different conclusion than I did is only lying to themselves. We can all do better for ourselves and each other in the face of persecution. There is strength in numbers when fighting hate, and the more diverse voices there are in that fight only makes stopping it more of a reality.

I apologize if anyone felt I was perpetrating anti-Semitism. I stand with the Jewish community now after Pittsburgh and always, as with any other persecuted group. But my greater point still stands. If we as the Jewish community hope to move past the anti-Semitism that has been ever present, we need to be there for concurrently discriminated people at every opportunity possible. Most people have a tendency to feel ambivalent towards hate until they are the ones in danger and that is what I am speaking out against, not any particular community. I don’t blame the Jewish community for standing together after this horrific event, but I wish that collective horror and outrage would be expressed more frequently by everyone or else these types of events will not stop for anyone.