jews in the d

Detroit-Pittsburgh
Connections

The Mi Shebeirach prayer for healing was read at a vigil Sunday sponsored by Michigan Hillel.

RABBI CHUCK
DIAMOND

“The 11 people killed
were good people who
just wanted to come to
shul as they did each week
to pray and study,” said Rabbi Chuck
Diamond, former rabbi at Tree of Life.
Diamond, who lives just around the
corner from the synagogue, arrived there
Saturday morning in time to speak with
some who had been inside the building.
Having been a rabbi at the congre-
gation until this past year, he said he
knew most of those who were killed. The
Pittsburgh native spent much of this past
Shabbat trying to be of comfort to fam-

TOVA
WEINBERG

Former Detroiter Tova
Weinberg was in ser-
vices Saturday morning
when she learned of the
attack at Tree of Life. “I
was in shul at 10 a.m. I heard lots of
sirens and it disturbed me,” she said.
“Then at 10:10, the rabbi of our shul
(Orthodox) Poale Zedeck told us there
was an active shooter at the Tree of

ilies of victims. He now is leader of the
spiritual community Kehillah La La in
Pittsburgh.
From 1988-1991, Diamond served
as rabbi of education and youth at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in
Southfield, where, in 1966, Rabbi Morris
Adler was shot and killed during Shabbat
morning services by a congregant.
“Working (there) with their history
and the tragedy of what happened to
Rabbi Adler, I have always had a fear
in the back of my mind of something
happening like what happened (in
Pittsburgh),” he said. “I am saddened by
the events. I pray for a better tomorrow.”

— Shelli Liebman Dorfman,
Contributing Write

Life and all shuls in the neighborhood
were on lockdown. We were all scared.
The rabbi brought the kids into the
main sanctuary and we started saying
Tehillim.
“After the service, the congregation
was told to go straight home but not to
go near Forbes Avenue. Well, I live on
Forbes, so (my husband) Joel and I ran
home and waited.”
After Shabbat, they learned the
heartbreaking news their beloved
friend Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz had been

SAMANTHA STOLOFF

RABBI
JONATHAN
BERKUN

Having grown up
in Pittsburgh, Rabbi
Jonathan Berkun
describes Tree of Life as his second
home, filled with friends and what
he said felt like extended family and,
for his father, the congregation’s
rabbi emeritus, “the center of the
Berkun family universe.”
His family is safe, but, “I cannot
stop shaking. I am sad, angry and
brokenhearted,” Berkun wrote in
both a Facebook post and in a blog
on the Times of Israel. Formerly a
Congregation Shaarey Zedek rabbi
in Southfield, he now leads a congre-
gation in Aventura, Fla.
“For the last 35 years, my father,
Rabbi Alvin K. Berkun, has attend-
ed every Shabbat morning service
at the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha
Congregation. For 23 years, he was
the congregation’s rabbi. For the last
12 years, he continued to pray there
in retirement.”
This past Shabbat, Jonathan
Berkun’s mother wasn’t feeling well
and asked her husband to stay home.
“She very well may have saved his
life,” Jonathan wrote.
Upon hearing of the shooting,
his father went straight to the syna-
gogue. “A former Navy chaplain and
active Pittsburgh Police chaplain,
(he) threw on his jacket and tended
the scene,” Berkun wrote. “I cannot
imagine how hard that was for him.”
Jonathan Berkun’s own first word
of the shooting was during Shabbat
services, in the midst of his sermon
on “the recent acts of domestic ter-
rorism — whose investigation led
straight to Aventura” (where the
suspect who had been sending pipe
bombs through the mail had been
apprehended).
“I am devastated to learn of the
murder of one man in particular,

killed during the shooting.
“He was a kind, gentle doctor who
cared only for his patients. He was
always concerned for everyone, espe-
cially his friends and his patients,”
she said. “He was looking to retire to
spend more time with his wife. He was
a remarkable guy in everything he did.
“We are simply horrified one of our
good friends was killed, along with
many acquaintances,” Weinberg said.
“Squirrel Hill is the beating heart
of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community.

who, just a few weeks ago at our syn-
agogue in Aventura, I was remem-
bering fondly together with his
parents who were here for a family
simchah,” he wrote. “We sat together
over Shabbat lunch, reminiscing how
their son used to entertain me at
Tree of Life when, as a 10-year-old
kid, I never sat still. Now he’s gone.
I grieve for him and the others who
lost their lives. My heart breaks for
them and their families.”
Among Berkun’s first courses of
action was to head for Pittsburgh.
“I still cannot comprehend how
America in 2018 can be fertile
ground for murdering Jew-haters,”
he wrote. “As in the wake of all
recent American tragedies, we will
undoubtedly argue over its root
cause and what can be done to pre-
vent history from repeating itself.
But some things are clear. Gun
violence is an American epidemic.
Anti-Semitism is statistically rising
in America. Politics and public dis-
course have assumed the vernacular
of a street fight. Hatred and racism
are alive and well in this country.”
He suggests: Vote; get politically or
communally active; give back; hug
your loved ones; and stop sweating
the small stuff. If you are Jewish,
come to shul; show the haters that
they will never win and learn why
being Jewish matters. Study a text.
Practice praying.
“Shabbat is supposed to be a day of
peace, and synagogues are supposed
to be sanctuaries of spirit,” Berkun
wrote. “In my home and in my heart
that was all shattered. May the vision
in the verse we chant while returning
the Torah scroll to the ark be realized
soon and in our day:
“It is a Tree of Life to those who
hold on to it, and all of its supporters
are happy; its ways are ways of pleas-
antness, and all its paths are peace.”
(Proverbs 3:17-18)

— Shelli Liebman Dorfman,
Contributing Writer

You can find the entire tapestry of
American Jewish life woven through
the blocks of Squirrel Hill.
“There’s a feeling of dread hanging
over everyone connected to the neigh-
borhood today. Jewish or not, there
are almost zero degrees of separation
between people who call Squirrel Hill
home. In a tightknit community like
this, we knew most of the victims.”

— Shelli Liebman Dorfman,
Contributing Writer

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November 1 • 2018

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