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As jury launches deliberations in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, defense concedes shooter’s hatred of Jews
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — After 11 days of graphic and emotionally fraught testimony in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial, and a 90-minute closing argument that included gruesome photos and the replay of harrowing 911 calls, it was time for the defense to speak.
A lawyer for Robert Bowers, accused of being the gunman who murdered 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue, on Thursday walked across the courtroom to a podium, faced the jury, and spoke for just 19 minutes.
Elisa Long acknowledged the immensity of the crime on Oct. 27, 2018, and offered only half a defense. Bowers did not intend to keep Jews from worshipping, she said, but he did appear to hate Jews.
“There is no question that his posts on Gab.com and his statements that day reflected animosity and hatred toward Jews,” Long said, referring to a social media site that is a virtual redoubt for extremists.
It was a critical concession that 11 of the government’s charges, that Bowers committed capital hate crimes, may be irrefutable.
A prosecutor took another 20 minutes to rebut Long’s barebones defense, and then Judge Robert Colville ordered the jury to begin deliberations. Seven women and five men filed out of the court at 2:30 p.m., and clerks followed them with wheeled carts piled with evidence. They retired Thursday without arriving at a verdict.
The defense, which barely registered as a presence during the guilt phase of the trial, appears to be reserving its arguments for the death penalty phase, which begins a week after the jury returns a verdict, if it determines that Bowers is guilty of any of the 22 capital crimes out of 63 charges in the indictment.
Defense lawyers in March said they would bring up Bowers’ mental health, including evidence that he suffers from epilepsy and schizophrenia. On the first day of the trial, Colville forbade them from doing so during the guilt phase of the trial, but said they may raise mental health during the penalty phase.
In her closing argument, Long devoted most of her time to sowing doubt about 11 of the capital charges, that Bowers “intentionally obstructed by force … the enjoyment of free exercise of religious beliefs,” resulting in 11 deaths.
“It is vitally important not to convict him of crimes he did not commit,” she said.
The free exercise of religious beliefs “does not include the engagement in good works or conduct that may or may not be part of religious belief,” she said.
Then jurors would have to determine whether Bowers was seeking to stop a religious service “or to stop people who were supporting the resettlement of refugees,” she said.
One of the three congregations housed in the Tree of Life synagogue, Dor Hadash, was partnered with HIAS, the Jewish immigration advocacy group. She quoted Bowers’ Gab posts in which he identified Jews with what he believed was a planned genocide of white Americans to be carried out by immigrants.
“HIAS is a huge enabler of refugee invasions,” Bowers posted on Oct. 25, Long pointed out, two days before the massacre. Dor Hadash, she noted, was on that Saturday planning a “Refugee Shabbat.” His responses were “shocking and irrational,” she said, but “after learning about HIAS” and its advocacy, “Mr. Bowers’ sense of urgency increased.”
Long began her closing argument by acknowledging, as lead defense attorney Judy Clarke had done in her opening argument, that Bowers had carried out the massacre.
“There is no dispute that on Oct. 27. 2018, armed with an AR-15, he shot and killed 11 people and seriously injured two others who were in their sacred space,” Long said. The defense on day one of the trial promised “we would not offer justification, and we have not done so,” she said.
Summing up, Long appeared to anticipate the mental health arguments the defense would make during the penalty phase, while being careful not to violate Colville’s order not to explicitly raise the topic.
She described a 46-year old man “living alone in an apartment” where he slept on a mattress on the floor and who was obsessed with computers, coding and guns. “How and why this man who lived a quiet and law abiding life until 2018” committed the crimes may be “inexplicable,” she said.
In the months before the massacre Bowers “spent an immense amount of time on the internet absorbing hate,” she said.
Long did not argue that the government had proved the 11 capital hate crimes. But she also did not argue that it had not, telling the jury, “These are the charges the federal government has brought and these are the decisions you as jurors must make.”
In his rebuttal, Eric Olshan, a U.S. attorney, ridiculed Long’s claim that obstructing worship was not germane to Bowers’ intentions.
Facing the jury, he spun around and pointed to Bowers.
“On Oct. 27, 2018, that man, Robert Bowers, went into Tree of Life, where three congregations, not just Dor Hadash” were getting ready for services. The other two are Tree of Life and New Light. “He didn’t focus on Dor Hadash, he focused on any Jew he could find to kill or try to kill.”
He accused Long of cherrypicking Bowers’ Gab posts, and reminded jurors of evidence that in the months prior to the attack, Towers had “liked” just two posts mentioning HIAS, while “liking” some 400 mentions of “Kike,” an antisemitic epithet, and some 2,300 mentions of “Jew.”
“Did he go to a refugee resettlement meeting? Did he go to the border to stop Jews” from facilitating the entry of immigrants? Olshan asked. “Did he go to the HIAS office in Maryland? He drove about 30 minutes from where he lived to Squirrel Hill, the center of Jewish life in Pittsburgh.”
Again Olshan pointed at Bowers. “That person intended to obstruct them from free exercise of religion,” he said. “This is not rocket science.”
In any case, Olshan, who is Jewish, said HIAS’s work is inextricable from Jewish faith. “Welcoming the stranger” appears 36 times in the Torah, he said, including in the passage the congregations would be reading that morning. “That just proves his guilt,” he said.
Throughout the day, Bowers never looked toward the jury. Clad in a gray sweater with a collared blue shirt, he stared at a computer screen where he monitored evidence and scribbled notes, occasionally whispering to his lawyers.
Bowers’ aunt and a cousin were present in the courtroom, as were survivors of the attack and families of the victims. There was an expectation that a verdict would be quick; the overflow room for families was packed. Maggie Feinstein, who counsels the victims, was in the court room. So was Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who testified on the first day that he expected to die where he was hiding, and recited the Shema prayer. He wore a white kippah emblazoned with the synagogue’s symbol, a blue tree.
The day began with Colville warning the jury that his instructions to them would be exceptionally long; he took 80 minutes. Then Soo Song, an assistant U.S. attorney, spoke for 90 minutes, reconstructing the day of the massacre, Oct. 27, 2018, detail by gory detail. Of the 11 people killed, she said, six were shot in the head.
She anticipated the argument Long would advance, repeatedly emphasizing the rituals Bowers interrupted with deadly results. Using bloody photos of victims in their place, she focused especially on religious implements.”The defendant committed mass murder in a synagogue,” she said. “He turned that sacred space into a place littered with prayer shawls and prayer books and 11 deceased worshippers.”
She concluded naming the 11 victims: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
Olshan ended the day holding two evidence bags, each with half of a bloodstained kippah. “No longer a reminder of God’s presence,” he said. “This is what he did to Irving Younger, leaving this tattered reminder found amid the shocks of Irving younger’s white hair.”
The obstruction of worship was “the natural and probable consequence of his actions,” Olshan said.”The only justice is a verdict of guilty in every charge in this case.”
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OneTable reimagines Shabbat dinner program amid safety concerns, layoffs and budget crisis
(JTA) — When the Shabbat-dinner nonprofit OneTable slashed a quarter of its staff last month, it wasn’t only because of a budget crisis.
It’s true that fundraising was way down. But the group was also responding to what it sees as important shifts in how Jews gather, citing its growing sense that Gen Z is less likely than others to want to open doors to their home.
Now, OneTable is revealing a raft of new pilot programs and policies, including a move away from its defining practice of subsidizing dinners; a new policy barring anti-Israel events; a renewed focus on young Jews; and a shift toward partnerships with emergent Shabbat “clubs” to lift the burden and risk of hosting at home.
“In this world right now, the idea of welcoming something, someone into your home is scary to people,” said OneTable’s new CEO, Sarah Abramson, who joined the company in May. “All of these things are actually creating barriers to people wanting to host in their homes, and so we know that we need to bring OneTable out into the world.”
At the same time, the group is centralizing its operations. While the 14 layoffs took place across the company, Abramson said OneTable had focused in part on field managers, who served as regional liaisons with hosts and potential hosts.
“If a person in that community really saw that field manager as the face of OneTable, and for whatever reason, did not feel like that person spoke to them or was not aligned with their Jewish values and how they want to Shabbat, then often they would kind of discount OneTable,” she said.
The changes come as Israel looms large over Jewish nonprofits, influencing fundraising and engagement while also at times laying a minefield, especially for younger Jews who are increasingly divided in their sentiments.
OneTable says the number of people participating annually in Shabbat dinners it supports doubled after Oct. 7, 2023, in keeping with a “surge” of Jewish engagement that many organizations observed following Hamas’ attack on Israel. Before the resulting war in Gaza, 42,000 people a year were attending OneTable dinners. After, the number reached 80,000, according to the group.
But the group struggled to keep pace when it came to fundraising. In 2024, OneTable ran a deficit of more than $900,000, spending about $10.6 million while bringing in just over $9 million in contributions, according to their tax filings that year. That represented a sharp decline in funding from 2023, when the organization reported nearly $12 million in contributions and ended the year in a surplus.
“In full transparency, our philanthropy has not kept pace with the volume,” Abramson said.
Prior to joining OneTable, Abramson worked as the executive vice president for strategy and impact at Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Boston’s Jewish federation. There, she oversaw grantmaking as well as the nonprofit’s $60 million post-Oct. 7 Israel emergency fund.
As Jews across the United States flooded funds like that with nearly $1 billion, concerns quickly emerged about whether the donations would supplant other giving. The answer at OneTable, at least, appears to be yes, Abramson said.
“Eighty thousand participants requires so much more philanthropic support at a time where, rightly, philanthropic support for the Jewish community was directed towards Israel, and really thinking about other priorities,” she said.
Gali Cooks, the president and CEO of Leading Edge, a nonprofit that provides training, research and support for Jewish nonprofits, said that there was also a “tricky confluence right now of rising demands and rising costs” within the Jewish nonprofit sector.
Cooks said that, across the sector, nonprofit leaders were realizing that they have to “think smaller and bigger at the same time” — as OneTable says it is doing.
“Within each organization, leaders are trying to achieve more focus and clarity and streamlining toward the mission,” said Cooks. “But between organizations, they’re striving for more collaboration, more partnerships, shared infrastructure, and shared planning. That’s true in the conversation about talent, board excellence, and leadership development, but I think it’s also true about things like antisemitism, security, Israel engagement, and more.”
The changes underway at OneTable include formalizing a stance on Israel for the first time. Earlier this month, the organization added a list of its “core commitments” to its website that included a section outlining drawing a hard line against anti-Israel advocacy.
“We do not formally partner with, or support, any organization, Shabbat dinners, or gatherings that call for Israel’s destruction or in any way question Israel’s right to exist,” the section reads. “We do not fund dinners that align with any political party or candidate.”
At the same time, the group is aiming to stoke Israel talk at the Shabbat table. The group has a new partnership with Resetting the Table, a Jewish nonprofit that teaches dialogue skills, to “allow our Shabbat tables to become nuanced places for hard conversations,” Abramson said during a presentation about at the Jewish Federations of North America annual conference in November.
“We also are doing a lot of pilots based on research that enable the skill of hard conversations for Shabbat,” Abramson told JTA. “For example, we have a pilot right now with Resetting the Table, helping a lot of our hosts think through, how do you actually have deep, meaningful conversations, often about Israel, but not only, particularly in the American context right now.”
For some, the changes mark an unhappy end to OneTable as a respite for young Jews from the pitched ideological divides over Israel that increasingly characterize Jewish experiences.
Alexis Fosco, a former OneTable employee, posted on LinkedIn last month in an announcement of her departure that she was “frustrated at Jewish funders withdrawing from diaspora-focused work, leaving the staff who are already subsidizing their causes to absorb the impact.” She indicated that she had not been among the laid-off workers.
“I keep thinking about how funding-driven scope creep takes hold,” continued Fosco. “It’s heartbreaking and spiritually exhausting to pour yourself into an organization and walk away realizing the work no longer aligns with what you set out to build or believe in.”
Three former field managers did not respond to JTA requests for comment.
Abramson said the nonprofit’s new initiatives would be rolled out as pilots over the coming year. But even if the tests are temporary, they mark a significant shift for the nonprofit that has long been synonymous with underwriting the costs of serving Shabbat dinner at home. Hosts have historically received $10 stipends for each registered guest at their OneTable dinners.
An analysis of host patterns found that a small number of repeat hosts were racking up disproportionate subsidies.
In September, after one former OneTable host posted about their dismissal from the program on Facebook, Dani Kohanzadeh, OneTable’s senior director of field, told JTA that it had let go of just under 50 hosts in one week. But she said that the decision was not primarily financial.
“It’s not about balancing the budget,” said Kohanzadeh. “We didn’t make this decision based on the financial cutoff, it’s based on the overall experience with our support.”
Now, Abramson said the organization plans on rolling out alternative incentives for hosting Shabbat, including a “point” system in which points can be exchanged for prizes including, potentially, trips to Israel and elsewhere.
“OneTable’s model really works for a lot of people … so we want to ensure that people who are finding a lot of meaning and financial support through nourishment continue to be able to choose that, we won’t be taking that away,” she said.
Abramson said the company was also shifting away from its recent focus on older Jewish adults to center its programming on younger Jews.
“OneTable was founded as an organization designed to provide Friday night Shabbat experiences for young adults,” she said. “This is really going back to our roots and ensuring that we are evolving the way in which young adults want to be reached.”
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Resignations shake art gallery after it rejects Jewish pro-Palestinian activist’s work over antisemitism claims
(JTA) — An art gallery in Canada has been roiled by resignations after it narrowly voted not to acquire works by Jewish photographer and outspoken pro-Palestinian activist Nan Goldin over accusations that she holds antisemitic views.
The resignations of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s modern and contemporary curator and two members of its modern and contemporary collections committee were first reported by The Globe and Mail.
Goldin, who is widely acclaimed for her documentary-style photography of marginalized communities, has faced controversy in recent years over her outspoken pro-Palestinian activism.
In the weeks following Oct. 7, Goldin also signed onto a letter calling for “Palestinian liberation.” In April 2024, she also signed another letter calling for Israel’s exclusion from the Venice Biennale. In December 2023, Goldin told n+1 Magazine that she had “been on a cultural boycott of Israel for my whole life.”
And German leaders criticized her after she said in a November 2024 speech at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, where she said, “I decided to use this exhibition as a platform to amplify my position of moral outrage at the genocide in Gaza and Lebanon,” adding, “Anti-Zionism has nothing to do with antisemitism.”
Last week, Goldin donated one of her artworks to a fundraiser for Palestinian children curated by children’s YouTube star Ms. Rachel, who has faced criticism for her pro-Palestinian advocacy.
According to an internal memo obtained by The Globe and Mail, the gallery was embroiled debates over acquiring Goldin’s works in the middle of last year.
The gallery’s modern and contemporary curatorial working committee eventually voted 11-9 against purchasing Goldin’s works, after some members alleged Goldin’s remarks were “offensive” and “antisemitic.” Other members of the committee argued that her works were not antisemitic and that “refusing the work because of the artist’s views was censorship,” the newspaper reported.
The Art Gallery of Toronto is publicly funded and already houses three of Goldin’s works. The work it decided not to acquire, “Stendhal Syndrome,” does not relate to her pro-Palestinian activism and was instead acquired by Vancouver gallery that has displayed it since November.
Following the debate over Goldin’s work, the director and chief executive of the Toronto gallery, Stephan Jost, outlined a governance review that recommended a “reset” on the committee’s acquisition discussions and “clarification” of its members’ responsibilities, according to the Globe and Mail.
In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the resignations, the gallery acknowledged the turmoil over Goldin’s work and said they had engaged an expert to review the meeting.
“Political views are never intended to be part of the process. In this instance, personal political views did surface,” said a AGO spokesperson. “As a result, the AGO engaged an independent governance expert to review matters relating to that meeting. The AGO takes these learnings seriously and has reset to ensure that such discussions are focused on an artwork’s alignment to the AGO’s acquisition criteria, are healthy and productive, and welcome multiple perspectives.”
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Berlin rabbi convicted of ‘sexual assault and sexual coercion’ of woman he offered to counsel
(JTA) — BERLIN — A Berlin district court has found a rabbi guilty of “sexual assault and sexual coercion by exploiting a moment of surprise,” a misdemeanor under German law.
The criminal case was brought by the Berlin public prosecutor and by one of multiple women who have accused the rabbi of a range of sexual abuses dating back almost two decades. Anyone with a complaint may press charges, Michael Petzold, a press spokesman for the public prosecutor, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Many of the women — including the co-plaintiff in this case — have said they thought they were his only victim, until news reports emerged following his firing by the Jewish community in Berlin on June 1, 2023.
The saga proved significant because it marked a rare instance of a rabbinic firing by an organized Jewish community in Germany. It also initiated a new openness to discussing abuse allegations within the community.
Reuven Y., 49, a married father of four, has now been given a suspended prison sentence of 10 months as well as two years’ probation. German law bars the release of the convicted person’s full name and address.
The co-plaintiff and two witnesses were among 17 women who had testified against the rabbi in July 2023 to an Orthodox Jewish court, or beit din, in Germany. That court had determined that the defendant was unfit to serve in any of his clerical roles, including as ritual circumciser, Torah scribe and kashrut supervisor.
In the current case, the defendant “invited witness P. to a purported ‘personality training’ on February 21, 2021” in the premises of his synagogue on Passauer Strasse in Berlin, according to the Berlin district court verdict issued Wednesday.
In the course of this “training,” the rabbi instructed the witness “to stand with her back to the wall and close her eyes in order to free her from the ‘negative energies’ of her ex-partner,” the court found. He then suddenly kissed her intimately, without her consent, the court wrote. “Due to the unforeseen assault, the witness was unable to defend herself. Her well-being was significantly violated by your behavior,” the court wrote, addressing the defendant.
On Tuesday, Reuven Y. withdrew his right to appeal the decision. If he violates his probation, even on the last day, he can be jailed for the full 10 months, Petzold said.
The rabbi’s Berlin-based defense attorney, Galina Rolnik, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
The newly convicted rabbi, who had unsuccessfully sued the Jewish community to get his job back, recently lost his appeal in that case, it was reported during the recent trial. He told the court during a hearing on Jan. 5 that he was being supported by his wife.
The Jewish community fired him in 2023 after a handful of women, all of them with a migration background from the former Soviet Union, testified privately that the defendant had assaulted them sexually, mostly after gaining their confidence by claiming that only he as a rabbi with special powers could help them resolve family or relationship problems. The incidents dated back nearly two decades.
The Orthodox Rabbinical Conference of Germany, known by its German acronym ORD, issued a statement following the verdict.
“We have the deepest sympathy for the woman affected. We as rabbis will not remain silent when a sexual assault occurs in the name of Judaism,” the statement said. “The Beit Din (Jewish rabbinical court) of the ORD and the rabbis of the ORD condemn all forms of harassment and abuse in the strongest possible terms, especially when perpetrated by someone in a position of power within education and religion. A person who harasses or abuses others is not fit to hold the office of rabbi and should not be active in religious, rabbinical, or educational positions.”
Court witness Elena Eyngorn, the whistleblower who raised awareness and support for the victims in 2023, told the court during the recent criminal trial that about 32 women had contacted her with accounts of abuse by the accused rabbi. She also testified that other incidents were more severe than the one heard in the case that resulted in conviction.
This reporter was subpoenaed and testified in the case about JTA’s previous reporting on the topic.
Petzold told JTA that other alleged victims “may file complaints at the police station or at the prosecution office. And then it has to be investigated.”
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