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As trial begins in Tree of Life massacre, Pittsburgh’s Jews struggle with what to reveal and what to conceal
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — On Friday afternoon, Squirrel Hill was suffused with spring breezes and pink dogwoods, and alive with the movement that typifies the coming of Shabbat.
Toddlers scrambled up the jungle gym in the JCC playground, while the chatter in cafes was about a looming storm that could soak the walk to synagogue on Saturday. Murray Avenue Kosher was emptying out of challahs.
Barely present, at least on the surface, was any indication that Monday morning would hold a turning point in the community’s greatest trauma. That’s when jury selection was to begin in the trial of the man accused of shattering Shabbat on Oct. 27, 2018, with gunfire. His massacre of 11 worshipers, in a synagogue building a 10-minute stroll from the downtown of this leafy, heavily Jewish neighborhood, was the deadliest-ever attack on U.S. Jews.
But behind the scenes, there are clear signs that the trial’s proximity is being felt. Maggie Feinstein, the director of the 10/27 Healing Partnership, which provides post-traumatic therapy for the community, said that as the trial nears, requests for treatment have spiked.
“The trauma cues that for a while bothered us right after the shooting — for some people it might be ambulances, for other people it might be media, for some people it might be the sound of multiple police cars — you get to a place where they don’t bother you as much,” she said. “But the increased media attention and the increased awareness of this upcoming trial for a number of people is bringing back for them that maybe they didn’t do their own healing the first time around.”
A Starbucks in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh is decorated with a memorial for the victims of the 2018 massacre at the city’s Tree of Life synagogue, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
There were three congregations in the building: Tree of Life and New Light, both affiliated with the Conservative movement, and Dor Hadash, which is Reconstructionist.
The 11 victims were brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, couple Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Rose Malinger, Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger. Seven were from Tree of Life, three were from New Light and one was from Dor Hadash.
For their families, their friends, their congregations and their broader Jewish community, the legacy of the massacre is a deep-seated longing for control, a longing to never have to think again of the gunman and of the anguish he left in his wake, while grappling with tender memories of the dead, of the decades spent in celebration and in prayer in the building.
Who narrates this story, the gunman or his victims? That struggle now looms as the alleged gunman goes to trial. The community is wrestling with questions such as where and whether to put the bullet-riddled artifacts, whether to worship at the site, whether to even speak of the massacre and how and whether the gunman lives or dies.
”We believe strongly that this antisemitic attack should not stop people from practicing and being Jewish,” Feinsten said. “For a lot of people, that’s an active choice that they have to work at. It doesn’t come easily after feeling unsafe in that environment to then work to find safety in it. But a lot of people have chosen to do that.”
On Friday, Feinstein was organizing support services for families who would, if they so choose, be sequestered in a separate room in the court where they could view the trial. (Family members may also ask to be seated in the courtroom.) She assigned six therapists to be present with the families.
Compounding the revisited trauma of the event, the families are divided over whether the gunman, should he be convicted, deserves the death penalty. The accused has a lawyer, Judy Clarke, known as “the attorney for the damned” for her determination to keep her clients from execution.
What’s clear is that the Jews of Squirrel Hill are taking the trial on with their characteristic spirit of collaboration. The community has hired public relations specialists to handle media inquiries ahead of the trial, in part to safeguard locals from being pressed to answer questions that could harm them or shatter the sense of unity. Congregants reached by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency dutifully deferred to the list of approved contacts on a list distributed by a PR agency.
On Friday afternoon, signs of unity that flooded the city in the immediate aftermath of the shooting were still visible. In a tobacconist’s window a sign with the slogan “No place for hate/Stronger than hate,” which had proliferated throughout the neighborhood after the attack, remained propped up next to a flag and an ad for the lottery. A Starbucks had on its window white paint drawings depicting “love,” “kindness” and “hope” in English and in Hebrew, alongside symbols: the Star of David, a heart and a dove.
A tobacconist window includes a poster of the “No Place for Hate” slogan that proliferated after the Tree of Life Massacre in 2018, in Pittsburgh, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
Representatives of the community talk about “doing Jewish” as a means of coping, including redoubling the very activities — allying with the city’s Black minority and advocating for immigration, refugees and gun control — that fueled the rage of the alleged attacker.
The attacker allegedly was driven in part by the partnership between Dor Hadash and HIAS, the Jewish refugee aid group, and the congregation’s sponsorship of refugee families.
“We have, if anything, doubled down on our commitment to immigrants and refugees,” said Dana Kellerman, the chair of the communications committee at Dor Hadash. “We are currently coming up on the end of our first year working with a new resettlement program to resettle a Congolese immigrant family in Pittsburgh, and we have every intention of when the year commitment is up of working with a second family.”
Kellerman said the shooting had “honestly become part of the background of our existence at this point.” In keeping with her congregation’s rules aimed at protecting their community, Kellerman declined to talk about the day of the massacre, the death penalty or about details of the trial. But she was open about the ways in which her congregation has leaned into the values it has long held, and that the gunman so reviled.
“We have become louder and more public about practicing our Judaism,” she said. Now, she said, the congregation incorporates advocacy for refugees into its service, with liturgical readings on immigration.
There are other changes. “We even have hats now! We have baseball caps!” Kellerman said with a smile, unearthing a photo of herself in a white cap with “Dor Hadash” and a stylized Magen David in blue, standing alongside gun control advocates.
“Previously we all would have shown up as our individual selves, and now we show up in our Dor Hadash baseball caps,” she said. “Mine kept blowing off.”
Steve Cohen, the co-president of New Light, said the congregation’s relationship with Black churches in the city has reached new intensity since the massacre. The congregation’s rabbi and congregants who know Hebrew partner with the churches to analyze sacred texts in the original.
“We would bring our Tanachs [Hebrew Bibles], and the Christian congregation would bring their Bible and then we would talk about the Proverbs and go through it, not just what the intention of the author was, but how different ways the same words can be translated in order to imply different things,” he said. “And so we went through the whole Book of Proverbs with the Rodman Street Baptist Church, and this past winter, we did the selected Psalms with the faith and Destiny Church on the north side.”
The interior of the new sanctuary of the New Light congregation, four and half years after a gunman massacred three of its congregants, in Pittsburgh, April 21, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
New Light took its cue from survivors of the 2015 attack on the Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which a white supremacist murdered nine Black worshipers, Cohen said. Leaders of New Light traveled to the church and heard from its elders that it was not enough to tend to the traumatized individuals, but to the community; they emphasized outreach, bringing congregants back in.
“That’s a lot of the reason why we have an outpouring of members who never attended shul now attending shul,” he said.
Feinstein, too, said she had an intensification of religious and ritual observance among her clients: more frequent attendance at Shabbat services, forming a daily minyan, finding a study partner for daily Talmud study.
Kellerman said the community has become closer; she sees it in congregants who linger. “It shows up in things like people showing up for Friday night services, and hanging out to chat or getting on a little early to chat,” she said.
A rendition of architect Daniel Libeskind’s plans for the interior of the new Tree of Life synagogue. (Tree of Life)
In the days leading up to the trial, the community bid farewell to the most salient relic of that painful day: the hulking synagogue building on the corner of Wilkins and Shady that has stood empty since then. All three congregations have decamped to nearby synagogues, leaving behind the chain-link fence draped with paintings from children across the country wishing for strength.
“Nobody has been meeting in the synagogue since the day of the shooting,” said Carole Zawatsky, the Tree of Life CEO who is overseeing the plans to replace the building. The only people to have been inside at all, she said, were survivors and “special friends” — donors to the rebuilding and politicians.
Zawatsky said it is wrenching to even contemplate returning for some. “You can walk through the building and see where the gunman was destructive,” she said. “You can see where the gunman was apprehended, where the gunman opened fire. It’s devastating to witness.”
But some intend to: Tree of Life lost seven congregants but plans on returning once the building is rebuilt as a museum and education center focused on the dangers of extremism.
On Sunday, the Tree of Life congregation had an outdoor ceremony to say “L’hitraot,” Hebrew for “until we meet again,” to the building as it has existed up to now.
“We are grateful to God for the thousands of blessings that have passed through these doors,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the rabbi who sheltered congregants and alerted police, said at the ceremony. “We cannot, we must not, permit one day … to define us, nor outweigh all the good.”
The new center is being designed by Daniel Libeskind, the architect who designed the master plan for the World Trade Center site reconstruction in New York and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.
But Dor Hadash and New Light decided their moves were permanent in part because families of their victims swore never to return to the building.
New Light is now ensconced in what once was a secondary chapel at the Beth Shalom synagogue, as if it has been there for decades: Plaques honoring past donors and presidents adorn the walls of the sanctuary. The only signs of the massacre are the 1,000 paper cranes Pittsburgh’s Japanese community gave the congregation, reflecting a Japanese tradition that folding cranes will make a wish come true. They hang at the entrance to the sanctuary, unexplained by any plaque. There is a stained glass monument to the three victims at the cemetery where they are buried.
Even with Tree of Life’s commitment to return, many questions remain about what that will look like. The congregation has yet to decide what objects will stay in the sanctuary, what will stay in storage and what will be part of a separate exhibit, Zawatsky said.
“The first work that’s had to be done for the synagogue is ‘What are the things that need to be saved and go into storage during construction?’” she said.
In some ways, she indicated, the work of rebuilding could bear some resemblance to the balancing act that the community will have to navigate during the alleged shooter’s trial.
“We are thinking deeply about how you exhibit some of these materials,” Zaslavsky said, “in ways that are both teachable moments and don’t retraumatize.”
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Primaries prove it: In New York, pro-Israel politics are now a liability
(JTA) — A little more than a year ago, thousands showed up for the annual Paul Feig z”l Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, an all-night bonanza of eclectic Jewish learning. The program featured dozens of rabbis, scholars, journalists and artists. Yet the unquestioned star of the night was Ritchie Torres, the congressman from the Bronx who has become a beloved figure in the pro-Israel community.
Hundreds packed the gym to hear from Torres, with many others turned away at the door. Eventually the discussion turned to the upcoming mayoral primary that was just weeks away. Many in the crowd were alarmed by the surging popularity of Zohran Mamdani, but still skeptical that a staunchly anti-Israel lawmaker could be elected in the city with the world’s largest Jewish community outside of Israel.
Instead of reassurance, Torres, who was backing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral primary, issued a warning: If Mamdani pulled off his improbable upset, it would quickly become open season on pro-Israel Democrats like himself.
As it turned out, Torres didn’t have to worry. He won his primary race Tuesday night in a landslide, securing around 70% of the vote in New York’s 15th Congressional District against an anti-Israel challenger. But his prediction was still spot on: The primaries were a Mamdani wave, with all three of the mayor’s endorsed congressional candidates winning their primaries – and knocking off two solidly pro-Israel incumbents, Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, in the process.
In November, Mamdani’s ascension to City Hall felt like a political earthquake, putting an exclamation point on the reality that being staunchly anti-Israel was no longer a road block to success in Democratic politics. Yet Tuesday’s results feel more seismic – this is the first time that incumbent congressmen have lost their seats in campaigns in which they were repeatedly attacked for being too supportive of Israel. Whatever other issues were at play in the individual races, the success of candidates with an outsized focus on criticizing the Jewish state and groups that support it – in particular, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – sends the message that their approach is a winning strategy.
There are still plenty of districts where Democrats can win with pro-Israel positions and pro-Israel support, for example the congressional seat being vacated in Marylan by pro-Israel stalwart Steny Hoyer. Hoyer’s pick to succeed him, Adrian Boafo, won Tuesday in a crowded 24-candidate primary with major backing from AIPAC.
But suddenly, for a widening swath of the Democratic congressional caucus, backing Israel has gone from being the politically safe move to a potential career-ender.
Goldman, who won his first reelection primary with about 65% of the vote in 2024, ended up on the wrong side of a similar landslide this time around in his race against former City Comptroller Brad Lander. Espaillat, who has served in Congress for nearly a decade and is chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost to Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York’s 13th Congressional District, which includes Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.
Following Mamdani’s lead, Lander and Avila Chevalier both sought to turn their opponent’s support for Israel into a defining moral failure and painted backing from AIPAC as the dictionary definition of being in the pocket of special interests.
Lander kicked off his campaign by making clear he wouldn’t be “doing AIPAC’s bidding” and made Goldman’s support from the pro-Israel lobby group a central issue throughout the campaign. Though Lander describes himself as a liberal Zionist, he repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and promised to oppose U.S. weapons sales to Israel.
Just last year, Cuomo and then-Mayor Eric Adams thought Mamdani’s stance on the Jewish state was a major political liability, so they did all they could to play up his anti-Israel bona fides in their race against him. In a sign of how quickly the political winds have shifted in New York, Goldman this spring sought to minimize his differences with Lander on Israel, noting that they both received endorsements from J Street, the dovish group that advocates for more U.S. pressure on Israel to achieve a two-state solution. Goldman, in the final debate, even offered his own criticism of AIPAC, saying the pro-Israel group “has some real problems and is harmful in many ways.”
In contrast, Espaillat took aim at Avila Chevalier on Israel. “She went to celebrate the death of innocent people in Israel right after the attack,” Espaillat said during a recent televised debate, referencing her participation in an anti-Israel rally, which the Democratic Socialists of America had promoted, the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Like Mamdani, Avila Chevalier’s early anti-Israel activism was a key aspect of her political biography: She was part of the Students for Justice in Palestine group during her years as an undergraduate at Columbia Univeristy and later helped organize the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment as an alumna in 2024. During the campaign, she criticized Espaillat for his response to the detainment of Columbia University encampment leader Mahmoud Khalil, whose arrest last year became a rallying point for pro-Palestinian activists.
What should really alarm the pro-Israel community, however, is that this progressive playbook contributed to victories in two very different races. In the case of Lander versus Goldman, you had two Jewish self-described Zionists running in a very Jewish district. Avila Chevalier, on the other hand, was a non-Jewish anti-Israel challenger taking on a non-Jewish incumbent with strong pro-Israel credentials in a district with relatively few Jews (at least by New York’s standards).
As Mamdani’s handpicked squad heads to Washington, the pressure on other congressional Democrats to speak out strongly against Israel and back measures such as end to U.S. arms sales will only intensify. That was clear from the election night victory speeches.
During Avila Chevalier’s speech, the crowd erupted into cheers of “Free Palestine.” She couched her victory as a rejection of funding from AIPAC, crypto and other corporate interests.
Lander promised in his victory speech to be “one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up loud for Palestinian human rights.”
“We cannot keep paying for Netanyahu’s wars with our tax dollars,” he added. “Democratic voters across the country are saying this loud and clear.”
It’s possible that Lander’s wrong and that Mamdani’s rise and coattails are an only-in-New York thing. But based on several other results this election cycle and polling in upcoming races, that hope increasingly feels like betting against the Knicks.
For the pro-Israel community, there’s at least one bright spot: At least for now, they still have Ritchie Torres.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Pro-Israel Adrian Boafo beats crowded field to replace Maryland’s Steny Hoyer
(JTA) — Pro-Israel candidate Adrian Boafo won Maryland’s Democratic primary to fill longtime Rep. Steny Hoyer’s seat on Tuesday, after waging a campaign supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at a time when other members of his party are disavowing the pro-Israel lobbying group.
Boafo, 32, is a state delegate who entered the contest with low name recognition. Hoyer hand-picked his former staffer, who managed some of Hoyer’s recent campaigns.
The octogenarian worked hard to get his protege past the finish line in Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, garnering the support of much of the state’s Democratic establishment and appearing in an ad for him. Hoyer, who was for decades the number two Democratic leader in the House, is a staunch Israel advocate and AIPAC ally who will retire this January after 45 years. Boafo won with 32% of the vote in the crowded Democratic field, with 68% of votes counted on Wednesday morning.
Boafo thanked his supporters and Hoyer late Tuesday night and said that he was Hoyer’s natural successor. “At first glance it might not seem obvious, but our stories are actually very similar,” he said. “Steny and I are both the sons of immigrants. We grew up believing in an America that drew our parents from across the sea.” Boafo’s parents are Ghanaian and Hoyer’s father was Danish.
His victory offered a glimmer of hope to the party’s pro-Israel wing, coming on the same night that three progressives who ran hard against AIPAC and the war in Gaza swept New York’s primaries, toppling powerful pro-Israel Democrats. Boafo sent a message that AIPAC still has the power to buoy Democratic candidates even as criticism of Israel surges in the progressive wing of the party and the Democratic electorate. The lobby, once seen as a necessary bipartisan stamp of approval, has become a stand-in for Israel’s influence on U.S. politics.
AIPAC poured $5.7 million into Boafo’s campaign through its super PAC, United Democracy Project.
Boafo pledged during the campaign to “strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance” and “mobilize humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians,” as well as to “ensure Israel has the security assistance it needs.” Military aid packages to Israel have increasingly divided Democrats amid the deeply unpopular wars fought by Israel in Gaza and Iran.
AIPAC celebrated Boafo’s victory on Tuesday night. “Boafo has made clear his vision to carry forward the strong pro-Israel legacy of Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of Congress’s most steadfast champions of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” the group said on X, adding that it was proud to “help ensure this seat remains represented by pro-Israel leadership.”
Boafo also benefited from crypto money. Protect Progress, a super PAC affiliated with the crypto industry, spent $5.5 million on the race largely to boost Boafo, who previously worked as a federal lobbyist for the technology firm Oracle.
The deluge of outside spending sparked a rebuke from Boafo’s opponents during the race. Candidates Harry Dunn, Quincy Bareebe and Rushern Baker teamed up to denounce the outlays last week, with Baker saying on a press call, “Special interests don’t spend money out of civic goodwill. They spend the kind of money that we see because they expect someone to work for them.”
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also criticized the spending this month and accused the pro-Israel and crypto groups of attempting to “buy this congressional seat.”
“Voters need to understand that these groups are not investing in this race out of charity,” Van Hollen said in a press conference this month. “They are spending because they believe the beneficiary of their spending — in this case, one candidate, Adrian Boafo — will be a dependable vote in support of their special interests.”
Boafo will face small business owner Chris Chaffee, the winner of the Republican primary, in November’s general election. Boafo is all but assured to win the deep-blue district.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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‘Mensch of Manhattan’ Lasher wins over Bores in fight for Nadler’s seat, media projects
(New York Jewish Week) — Micah Lasher has defeated Alex Bores in the battle for retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler’s Manhattan congressional seat, according to media projections Tuesday night.
In the race for the 12th Congressional District, the most Jewish in the country, Lasher had 40,106 votes, or 39.1 percent, and Bores collected 35,822 votes, or 35 percent, with 87 percent of the ballots counted.
The crowded field in the Democratic primary also included John F. Kennedy grandson Jack Kennedy Shlossberg, public health expert Nina Schwalbe, and George Conway, a Republican-turned-Democrat and Trump antagonist. All three were trailing well behind Lasher.
During his victory speech, Lasher pointed to both his and the district’s Jewish identity.
“It is an enormous point of pride that I will be representing the most Jewish congressional district in the country,” Lasher said. “I will always stand up for our community with pride.”
He also received a loud ovation after he thanked “the rabbis and Jewish community leaders” who helped the campaign.
A number of Lasher’s political allies and former bosses spoke, including Nadler, who’s represented the upper West Side since 1992, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Comptroller Mark Levine, and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who told the JTA that Lasher would be a bridge between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Jewish community.
Holyman-Sigal called Lasher the “mensch of Manhattan.”
Lasher thanked Nadler for his decades of service and mentorship, saying he taught Lasher things like “vision, compassion, and how to canvass voters outside Zabar’s.”
Nadler is “as much an institution in Manhattan as Central Park and pastrami on rye,” Lasher said.
The House seat — which covers the Upper West and Upper East sides and midtown Manhattan, and is seen as a crown jewel in New York politics — opened up after Nadler announced last fall that he would retire at the end of this term.
Nadler’s preferred heir was Lasher, a Jewish State Assembly member who has worked for the progressive stalwart and other prominent politicians such as Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Lasher has the support of those former bosses, plus much of the West Side political establishment.
Fellow Assembly member Bores, meanwhile, has built a coalition that includes both pro-Israel moderates and progressive groups critical of the Jewish state by emphasizing that he will be tough on artificial intelligence companies. Former congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who represented much of Manhattan’s East Side from 1993 until 2023, is among Bores’ supporters.
On the subject of Israel, the makeup of the NY-12 race has been unlike other contested New York City races: Elsewhere, at least one of the two leading candidates has accmused Israel of committing a genocide in Gaza and supports placing conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel.
But Lasher and Bores both describe themselves as pro-Israel and anti-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and neither one supports blocking weapons sales to the Jewish state.
Mamdani is himself a voter in the district as a resident of Gracie Mansion and who cast his ballot a few days ago, during the early voting period, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has declined to weigh in publicly on the race. The mayor endorsed two democratic socialist candidates and Brad Lander — his Jewish ally who accuses Israel of genocide, and has positioned himself against both offensive and defensive military aid to Israel — in other races.
Lasher and Bores have both consistently advocated for universally applying the existing Leahy Law, which bars the U.S. from providing military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity.
Schlossberg has criticized Lasher and Bores for their stance, calling it an “insufficient answer,” and advocates for blocking offensive weapons sales to Israel while still funding the Iron Dome defensive missile system. He is the only of the top-four candidates to call for conditions on aid to Israel and halting any weapons sales. After initially leading in early polls, Schlossberg’s support appears to have fallen amid questions over his lack of experience.
Conway, an anti-Trumper and longtime attorney who was married to former Donald Trump staffer Kellyanne Conway, rounds out the top four in the polling.
Throughout the election, candidates convened for forums at numerous synagogues in the heavily Jewish district — 23.3% of constituents are Jewish, according to a 2024 study — and answered questions related to antisemitism, Israel and other Jewish-related issues.
Lasher has said at multiple forums that he doesn’t see anti-Zionism as being precisely the same thing as antisemitism, but that “often when you see one you see the other.”
He and Bores have both touted their support for a statewide “buffer zone” bill — which Lasher introduced in response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside synagogues — that would curb protests outside houses of worship. Meanwhile, Schlossberg has pointed out at Jewish forums that the first policy his campaign released was “Jack’s Fast-Track Plan,” which would fast-track a doubling of funds for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program that funds security at houses of worship and community centers.
During a June forum at Upper West Side synagogue B’nai Jeshurun, Lasher said he felt “exhausted” by how much the political dialogue — both in the NY-12 race and more broadly — is “obsessed” with Israel.
Lasher is sure to win in November’s general election in the heavily Democratic district where he will face only token Republican opposition.
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