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

continued on page 6