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After synagogue gunman’s death sentence, Pittsburgh’s Jews feel relief, resilience — and gratitude
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — The overriding feeling in this city now that the gunman convicted of murdering 11 Jews here in 2018 has been sentenced to death is gratitude.
Not for the penalty itself, which was the preference of some but not all of the victims’ families and which some local Jews openly opposed, and not even for the end of a trial whose long delay protracted communal trauma.
Instead, the gratitude is for people — those who made the trial happen, those who supported the victims’ family members as they sat through weeks of painful testimony, and those who kept the singular Jewish community thriving even when so much had been lost.
Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi of the Tree of Life congregation, which was housed in the synagogue the gunman attacked, opened a press conference at the Jewish community center in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood with a prayer of thanks.
Dozens of family members and survivors of the attack joined him as he recited the Shehecheyanu prayer in Hebrew, then translated it for the media. The prayer, he said, thanks God, “who has kept us alive, sustained us and enabled us to reach this stage.”
There was palpable relief. “The only thing positive about the sentencing of a criminal is that this long slog is over,” said Audrey Glickman, who hid in the synagogue on the day of the attack.
Myers, who during the trial recalled praying as he waited for the gunman to kill him, thanked the Pittsburgh community, the prosecution, the first responders for what he said was the “embrace” they conferred on the Jewish community since the attack on Oct. 27, 2018.
Wednesday, he noted, was Tu B’Av, the Jewish calendar day marking rituals of courtship and love.
“I don’t believe in coincidences. It was meant to be today,” he said of the end of the trial. “Why today? Because today we received an immense embrace from the halls of justice around all of us, to say that our government does not condone antisemitism in the vile form that we witnessed, and that we were embraced by a system that supported and nurtured us and upheld us.”
Survivors and family members stepped up to the microphone, some with notes, some not, and expressed thanks to law enforcement, to the prosecutors, to others who rushed to their assistance after the attack and who nurtured them in the years since.
“I want to take the time to thank all of those people that were part of the jury, the court system, our local community here, the massive support structure and staff and police taking care of us,” said Howard Fienberg, whose mother Joyce was one of the 11 murdered. “And I especially want to thank the prosecution team for their steadfast focus on this capital crime as an antisemitic act as a frontal assault on the constitutional freedom of religion, and the freedom to be Jewish and practice Judaism in the United States.”
In the hall, the JCC maintained its suburban rhythms: Parents picked toddlers up from daycare, and members headed to the gym. Outside the building, one of the most consequential trials in Jewish history barely resonated; the main topic of conversation in a diner nearby was the summer blockbuster “Barbie,” showing in the cinema across the street.
The Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh, Aug. 2, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
But inside at the press conference, survivor after survivor, family member after family member, expressed thanks in great detail: to the police, the FBI, prosecutors, the social workers, the restaurants that had fed the stunned and traumatized in the weeks after the killing and throughout the trial.
They also emphasized the importance of keeping the victims at the center of the story about what happened in Pittsburgh. In addition to Joyce Fienberg, the people who were killed were Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
It was a showing typical of a Jewish community that had always been tight-knit and became more so in the wake of the attack. Squirrel Hill, in the eastern part of Pittsburgh, has been the center of the city’s Jewish life since the turn of the 20th century, when wealthy Jewish families began settling there. While Jewish communities in other cities moved neighborhoods or migrated to the suburbs in the ensuing century, Squirrel Hill remained the home of Pittsburgh’s Jews. The neighborhood is home to multiple Jewish day schools, kosher restaurants and a Holocaust museum — as well as about 15,000 Jews from all denominations.
Members of the three congregations housed in the synagogue building — Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash — spoke to the press only after clearing it first with a public relations firm the community hired. Volunteers and staffers for the 10.27 Healing Partnership, an organization launched in the wake of the massacre, sat with the survivors and family members in interviews, ready to intervene, they explained to reporters, if a question was too triggering.
Howard Fienberg, whose mother was a Tree of Life member, said the three congregations were friendly but not deeply involved with one another before the attack. Now that they had been brought together by tragedy and its aftermath, he found meaning in their closeness.
“I didn’t understand what Reconstructionism was like,” Fienberg said about the Jewish movement with which Dor Hadash is affiliated. “They were those guys down the hall for years.”
Now he said, he was more inclined to see what brings Jews together, and not what divides them. “There’s a reason that they were all in the same space,” he said. “And it wasn’t just happenstance. They’re all Jewish, right?”
The comments at the press conference were reflected in countless statements from community members and local organizations that expressed thanks, memorialized the victims and committed to sustaining Jewish community.
“As this chapter comes to a close, we reflect on the strength and resilience of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community and the entire community,” the local Jewish federation said in its statement. “In the wake of the horrors of the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history, our community neither retreated from participating in Jewish life nor suppressed our Jewishness. Instead, our community embraced our Jewish values — strengthening Jewish life, supporting those in need, and building a safer, more inclusive world.”
The divisions that do exist simmered beneath the surface on Wednesday. There had been differences among the families and the congregations about whether the death penalty was appropriate; a small contingent of local Jews who cited Jewish laws saying that the death penalty should be rare in the extreme organized. Of the nine families, the family of at least one of the victims, Jerry Rabinowitz, objected to the death penalty; seven other families were in favor of it.
Speakers at the press conference who did address the ultimate penalty were in favor of it.
“Even if he sits alive on death row for decades, he is separated from others,” said Glickman.
“Had he been sentenced to life in prison … he would have been afforded an increasing ability to communicate and play with others and the chance of working his way out of any high-security situation,” she added. “This has been a step in the right direction.”
The New Light congregation said in a statement that it “accepts the jury’s decision and believes that, as a society, we need to take a stand that this act requires the ultimate penalty under the law.” Notably, its rabbi, Jonathan Perlman, wrote to the U.S. attorney general to say he opposed the death penalty.
David Harris, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh law school, said differences about the death penalty persist but have not had an effect on the sense of mutual solidarity.
“There’s still a lot of really active conversations up to and including today that I’m having with people about, well, ‘I think he should get this,’ the death penalty or a life sentence,” Harris, who has walked members of the community through the trial’s legal thicket as a service of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, said in an interview earlier this week.
“But even though the community is not is not of one mind, we don’t have one universal opinion, we are united in supporting each other,” he said. “We are united in wanting this horrible thing to go right and be over and to say we did our best to support those who have been injured.”
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Pledges of Unity in Beijing Mask Deep Skepticism Among Iran, China, Russia
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands as they meet, in Beijing, China, Sept. 2, 2025. Photo: Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian traveled to Beijing on Tuesday, joining Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin as the three nations aim to project a united front against the West, even as the stability of their partnership remains uncertain.
Iranian and Russian officials, along with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, will attend Beijing’s military parade this week to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The high-profile gathering comes after Pezeshkian and Putin held talks in China on Monday on the sidelines of the 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin.
During a joint press conference, the Iranian president hailed Tehran’s cooperation with Moscow as “highly valuable,” adding that continued implementation of their 20-year treaty signed earlier this year would further strengthen ties and expand collaboration.
Putin also noted that the relationship between the two countries is “growing increasingly friendly and expanding” amid mounting pressure and sanctions from Western countries.
However, these remarks come after an Iranian official accused Russia without evidence of providing intelligence to Israel during the 12-day Middle Eastern war in June which allegedly helped the Jewish state target and destroy Iran’s air defense systems.
Mohammad Sadr, a member of Iran’s Expediency Discernment Council and close adviser to former President Mohammad Khatami, claimed Israel’s precise strikes on Iranian air defense systems were suspicious.
He noted Russia’s refusal to support Iran during the war, saying that Moscow had shown a “bias in favor of Israel” and that the recent conflict demonstrated the “strategic agreement with Russia is nonsense.”
“This war proved that the strategic alliance with Moscow is worthless,” Sadr said during an interview with BBC Persian, referring to the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.
“We must not think that Russia will come to Iran’s aid when the time comes,” he continued.
Earlier this year, Moscow and Tehran signed a 20-year strategic partnership agreement, further strengthening military ties between the two countries.
According to Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, Iran views all partnerships with deep suspicion, and its relationship with Russia is no exception.
“Tehran has long accused Moscow of enabling Israeli strikes against its assets in Syria — well before Assad’s collapse — by deliberately switching off its S-400 systems,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner, referring to recently deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian air defense systems.
“The Moscow–Tehran relationship is less an alliance in the traditional sense than a transactional partnership,” he continued. “At this stage, it is unclear whether either side truly benefits from the arrangement.”
With European powers now formally pursuing the reimposition of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program, Sayeh explained that the Iran-Russia partnership is further complicated, as the restrictions will once again limit arms sales and nuclear-related trade with the Islamic Republic.
“This may drive the regime to lean more heavily on Beijing, and some reports suggest it already has,” Sayeh told The Algemeiner.
According to some reports, China may be helping Iran rebuild its decimated air defenses following the 12-day war with Israel.
“The unresolved question is whether China views Tehran as a worthwhile bet, one worth risking violations of UN sanctions for, or whether it is instead watching Iran’s overlapping crises of water shortages, power outages, and economic decline with caution, skeptical of openly extending support,” he continued.
China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, with nearly 90 percent of Iran’s crude and condensate exports going to Beijing. The two sides also recently signed a 25-year cooperation agreement, held joint naval drills, and continued to trade Iranian oil despite US sanctions.
At the SCO summit in Tianjin earlier this week, Tehran described its ties with China as “flourishing,” pointing to a strategic pact similar to the one it signed with Russia.
“The 25-year agreement with China is under implementation and progressing. Our bilateral relations are very good and expanding. We value our relationship with China,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said during a press conference.
According to Jack Burnham, a research analyst at FDD, China’s assistance to Iran reflects Beijing’s long-standing practice of offering support when convenient and remaining discreet when tensions escalate.
“Still set firmly on its back foot, the [Iranian] regime may be looking for any possible friend in its foxhole, but the 12-day war should have convinced Tehran that Beijing only arrives when the weather is fair and risks tolerable,” Burnham told The Algemeiner.
After European countries moved to begin the process of reimposing UN sanctions on Tehran last week, China and Russia sided with Iran in opposing the move, once again favoring cautious diplomacy over direct support for their supposed partner.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Chinese, Russian, and Iranian foreign ministers condemned Britain, France, and Germany’s attempt to restore economic sanctions under the “snapback mechanism,” calling the move “legally and procedurally flawed.”
Our joint letter with my colleagues, the Foreign Ministers of China and Russia, signed in Tianjin reflects the firm position that the European attempt to invoke “snapback” is legally baseless and politically destructive. By declaring the E3’s move null and void, we have placed on… pic.twitter.com/YC4LKNkxMX
— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) September 1, 2025
Both China and Russia are signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, along with the three European countries known as the E3.
In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear agreement.
The US and E3 have sought to reignite talks aimed at reaching a new nuclear agreement following Israeli and US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
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Teachers Unions Across US Under Fire for Alleged Antisemitism
National Education Association president Becky Pringle leads hundreds of demonstrators in chants during a rally to end US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids, in Washington, DC, US, on, June 9, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
Teachers unions across the United States have come under intense scrutiny from both Jewish activists and federal lawmakers for allegedly promoting antisemitic ideas and fostering a hostile environment toward their Jewish members.
The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, for example, has opened an investigation into the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers union, over allegations that its policies and materials discriminate against Jewish members.
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the committee’s chairman, sent a letter late last month to NEA President Becky Pringle demanding documents tied to what he described as “antisemitic content” in the union’s 2025 handbook and its decision to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) over its support for Israel.
“The NEA’s 2025 handbook … contains passages and priorities that are hostile towards the Jewish people,” Walberg wrote, citing language that he said downplays the uniquely Jewish suffering of the Holocaust and promotes lessons on the so-called Palestinian “nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
In July, the NEA refused to adopt as policy a ban on the ADL voted for by the group’s Representative Assembly during an annual conference.
“The National Education Association stands firmly for every student and educator, of every race, religion, and ethnicity, and we unequivocally reject antisemitism,” the NEA told JNS in response to Walberg’s letter. “We have fought against all kinds of hate, including antisemitism, throughout our history and remain focused on ensuring the safety of Jewish students and educators.”
The congressional probe comes as teachers unions across the country face mounting criticism from Jewish educators and civil rights advocates who say the organizations are failing to protect them, and in some cases are actively fostering hostility.
In Massachusetts, the Zionist Organization of America filed a sweeping civil rights complaint last week against the Massachusetts Teachers Association, accusing the organization of creating a discriminatory environment. The filing cites union-distributed images and posters viewed as antisemitic, including one showing a dollar bill folded into the shape of a Star of David and another reading “Zionists [Expletive] Off.” Some Jewish educators say they have already left the MTA over its stance.
In New York, meanwhile, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has come under fire from its own Jewish members for their responses to antisemitic incidents in schools. The criticisms stem in part from an incident at Hillcrest High School, where a Jewish teacher was reportedly forced to lock herself in an office during an anti-Israel protest. Union critics also blasted the UFT for endorsing New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a supporter of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel who has been accused of antisemitism.
“How can we feel safe? When our teachers get attacked, our union says little and does nothing. When our protected rights are infringed upon, our union says little and does nothing. When they need us, they pretend we matter, and when they don’t, they ignore our concerns,” Moshe Spern, head of the United Jewish Teachers caucus, said last week at an “End Jew Hatred” rally, according to the New York Post.
Spern noted that more than 150 teachers are moving to cancel their union dues in protest.
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Iran’s Executions in August Jump 70 Percent Compared to Previous Year as Rights Groups Warn of Troubling Surge
Illustrative: A February 2023 protest in Washington, DC calling for an end to executions and human rights violations in Iran. Photo: Reuters/ Bryan Olin Dozier
The Islamic regime in Iran accelerated its execution machine last month, killing at least 152 prisoners according to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights.
The figure represents a surge of 70 percent compared to the 94 executions conducted in August 2024.
While Hengaw has identified 148 of those killed last month, four individuals remain unknown. Two people killed include Roozbeh Vadi, alleged to have engaged in “espionage for Israel,” and Mehdi Asgharzadeh, an alleged ISIS member. Iran executed at least five women for murder and one woman on drug charges.
According to Hengaw, two or more of the executions took place in public in Beyram and Kordkuy, cities in the country’s southern and northern provinces, respectively.
On Monday, the Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) released a report of human rights violations in Iran during August, noting that the number of executions had increased 40 percent compared to June and July, bringing the total execution count to 837 for the year. In comparison, the Islamic regime executed 930 people for the entire year of 2024.
HRANA broke down last month’s executions by charges, finding 87 drug offenses, 60 murder charges, two rapes, one for security offenses, and one person’s offenses are unknown. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, during the first half of 2025, nearly half of Iran’s executions targeted those convicted over drugs.
Iran killed one person on the charge of “corruption on earth,” which translates from the Koranic term “mofsed-e fel-arz” (مفسد فی الارض), a vague concept that Islamic judges have often applied toward political dissidents, alleged spies, or religious converts.
One tool that HRANA identifies Iran regularly deploying in its judicial system is forced confessions.
“Extracting forced confessions from political and ideological defendants, followed by broadcasting them on state television, is one of the regime’s routine practices against its opponents,” the human rights group stated. “In 2024, HRANA documented 28 cases of forced confessions. This month as well, Iran’s state television aired the forced confessions of a group of Christian converts.”
HRANA also found 73 arrests last month for citizens speaking out about their political views and beliefs; in addition, the state sentenced 27 people to 658 months in prison, 132 months of exile, and 130 lashes for speech offenses.
United Nations spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned last week that the human rights situation in Iran could be even worse than documented figures suggested.
“The high number of executions indicates a systematic pattern of using the death penalty as a tool of state intimidation, with disproportionate targeting of ethnic minorities and migrants,” Shamdasani said. “Public executions add an extra layer of outrage upon human dignity … not only on the dignity of the people concerned, the people who are executed, but also on all those who have to bear witness”
Shamdasani warned that “the psychological trauma of bearing witness to somebody being hanged in public, particularly for children, is unacceptable.” She argued that the death penalty “should never be imposed for conduct that is protected under international human rights law.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday announced the capture of eight people accused of aiding Israel’s Mossad espionage agency. During Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in June, police arrested as many as 21,000 individuals.
Australia announced the expulsion of Iran’s ambassador on Aug. 26, giving the diplomat seven days to leave following the discovery that the Islamic regime had directed antisemitic terrorism against the country’s Jews.
“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. “They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community.”
Mike Burgess, director general of Australia’s security agency, said “they’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of organized crime gangs to do their bidding or direct their bidding,”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Aug. 24 that “they want Iran to be obedient to America. The Iranian nation will stand with all of its power against those who have such erroneous expectations … People who ask us not to issue slogans against the US … to have direct negotiations with the US only see appearances … This issue is unsolvable.”