4 | OCTOBER 28 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

essay
What the Tree of Life Shooting 
Revealed about American Jewry
A 

few years ago, a col-
league called to inter-
view me for a book 
he was writing about journalists 
who worked for Jewish publi-
cations. I told him that it would 
be the first book 
in history whose 
readership would 
overlap 100% with 
the people being 
interviewed.
That’s a little bit 
how I feel about 
books that look 
deeply into the ins and outs of 
Jewish communal affairs: the 
admittedly small genre of syna-
gogue tell-alls, studies of Jewish 
philanthropy, scholarly work on 
how Americans “do” Judaism. 
Of course, I eat these books up 
— it’s my job and passion. But I 
suspect I am a distinct minority 
within a minority.
I also suspected Mark 
Oppenheimer’s new book, 
Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life 
Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of 
a Neighborhood, might be similar-
ly narrow in its scope and audi-
ence. In some ways it is, but that 
is also its strength: In describing 
the Oct. 27, 2018, massacre of 11 
Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh 
and how individuals and institu-
tions responded, he covers board 
meetings, interviews clergy, takes 
notes on sermons and reads 
demographic studies by Jewish 
federations. The result is a biop-
sy — or really, a stress test — of 
American Jewry in the early 21st 
century, the good and the bad.
And as a result, it tells a bigger 
story about and for all Americans 
in an age of mass shootings, 
political polarization and spiritu-
al malaise.

First the good: The Squirrel 
Hill in Oppenheimer’s book is 
a model of Jewish community 
building — home to the rare 
American Jewish population 
that stuck close to its urban roots 
instead of fleeing to the far sub-
urbs. The neighborhood boasts 
walkable streets, a wide array 

of Jewish institutions, a diverse 
public high school and local 
hangouts that serve as the “third 
places” so elusive in suburbia. 
Oppenheimer credits a federa-
tion leader, Howard Rieger, who 
in 1993 spearheaded a capital 
project that kept the commu-
nity’s infrastructure — “from 
preschool to assisted living” — in 
place and intact.
The universal outpouring of 
support after the shooting also 
showed American Jewish life at 
its best. Offers to help flooded in 
from Jews around the country 
and the world. Non-Jews rushed 
to assure Jews that they were 
not alone. Barriers fell between 
Jewish denominations, and peo-
ple put politics and religion aside 
to focus on the qualities and 

threats that unite them.
The downside is a photo 
negative of all that’s right about 
Squirrel Hill and American 
Jewry. The diversity and demo-
graphics of Squirrel Hill are a 
reminder of the more typically 
segregated way of American 
Jewish life — religiously, racially 

and economically. Orthodox and 
non-Orthodox Jews spin in sepa-
rate orbits. Many white Jews rare-
ly interact with people of color 
who aren’t cleaning their homes 
or taking care of their kids.
As for the support that flowed 
in: Oppenheimer also describes 
the ways the offers of help 
could feel both patronizing and 
self-serving, as outside Jewish 
groups and “trauma tourists” 
rushed in without considering 
the needs or feelings of the locals. 
One New York-based burial 
society sent “experts” to help the 
provincials tend to the bodies of 
victims; they were not-so-politely 
told that the locals had it under 
control. There’s a sad and hilar-
ious profile of an Israeli medical 
clown who, like so many clowns, 

ends up sowing more confusion 
than comfort.
Oppenheimer also complicates 
the rosy portraits of Pittsburgh’s 
“Stronger than Hate” response 
to the shootings. While the 
Jewish community remains 
mostly grateful for the shows of 
solidarity, there were missteps 
and miscommunications along 
the way. Even one of the most 
iconic images of the shooting — 
the Kaddish prayer written in 
Hebrew characters on the front 
page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 
— has a complicated backstory 
that ended with the departure of 
the newspaper’s editor.
Internal divisions are on dis-
play as well: Jewish progressives 
who protested President Trump’s 
visit to Squirrel Hill after the 
shooting argued with “alright-
niks” who either supported 
Trump or felt his office should 
be respected. Victims’ families 
reacted angrily after a local rabbi 
dared bring up gun control 
during an event on the one-year 
anniversary of the shootings. 
The rabbi later apologized for 
appearing to break an agreement 
that his speech would not be 
“political.
”
Perhaps most of all, Squirrel 
Hill describes American Jewry 
at a crossroads, with Tree of Life 
as a potent symbol of its present 
demise and future possibilities. 
The synagogues that shared 
space in the building drew and 
still draw relatively few worship-
pers on a typical Shabbat, and 
those who come tend to be older. 
While the Tree of Life shooting 
galvanized a discussion about 
whether Jews could ever feel safe 
in America, America’s embrace 
of Jews has left non-Orthodox 

Andrew 
Silow-Carroll

Children attend a rally Nov. 9, 2018, in Pittsburgh for peace and unity to 
remember victims of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting 13 days earlier, 
 

FLICKR COMMONS/GOV. TOM WOLF

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