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She represents the ‘worst of the worst.’ Now Judy Clarke is leading the defense in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre trial.
PITTSBURGH (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) — When Judy Clarke delivered her opening statement to the jury that will determine the fate of the man charged with committing the massacre in the Tree of Life synagogue building, she did not deny that her client was responsible.
In fact, she sympathized with the victims and their families.
Clarke, 71, began her address by acknowledging the horror of Oct. 27, 2018, and its aftermath.
“The tragedy that brings us together today,” she said in a soft-spoken yet confident voice, is “almost incomprehensible. It’s inexcusable. … Eleven lives were taken, others shattered. The loss that occurred is immeasurable.”
She told the jury there was “no disagreement, no doubt” about the identity of the perpetrator. It was “the man seated at that table,” she said, indicating her client. “He shot every person he saw and, in the process, injured others in their sacred spaces.”
Clarke was appointed to Robert Bowers’ defense team in December 2018, after he requested the counsel of a federal public defender specializing in death penalty cases. He faces 63 criminal counts related to his attack on congregations Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha. Many of the charges carry the death penalty.
Support JTA’s partnership with the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle throughout this trial.
As the trial proceeds, Clarke won’t try to convince the jury her client isn’t guilty. A “win” for her defense team will be for the defendant to avoid a death sentence and instead have him remain in prison for the rest of his life.
Clarke has vast experience defending those whom some call “the worst of the worst.” Her roster of past clients includes Susan Smith, who murdered her two young sons by drowning them in a lake in South Carolina; Theodore Kaczynski, otherwise known as the Unabomber; Buford Furrow, a white supremacist who opened fire in a Jewish community center outside of Los Angeles in 1999; Eric Rudolph, who planted a bomb in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Except for Tsarnaev — whose case is under appeal — Clarke succeeded in avoiding a death sentence for all her clients, either by negotiating a plea deal or by convincing the jury that mitigating factors, such as a mental illness, precluded imposition of the ultimate punishment.
Clarke’s team tried to negotiate a deal for a life sentence for Bowers in exchange for a guilty plea but was unsuccessful. Four and a half years after the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, the three-week jury selection process commenced on April 24 and testimony began on May 30.
“This is not a straightforward murder case,” Clarke told the jury in her opening statement. The federal charges — which include obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death — must be proved by showing the defendant had the requisite intent to commit those particular crimes, she said.
She acknowledged that her client’s actions on Oct. 27, 2018, were “reprehensible” and “misguided” and recounted his virulent social media postings and other rantings about Jews. But she also portrayed him as “quiet” and “socially awkward, a man with few friends.” He didn’t live on his own until he was 44, she said, and his family saw him as someone “more likely to commit suicide than kill others.”
It’s clear that Clarke is appalled by her client’s actions. It’s also clear that she is determined to see that his rights are protected and that the judge and the jury faithfully apply the rule of law.
“Judy is one of the best lawyers I’ve ever known,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angles and a former federal prosecutor. “She works insanely hard. She spends the time with the clients that she needs to. She doesn’t believe in the death penalty, and she’s devoted herself to representing people who are, you know — ‘the Voyage of the Damned’ is what she would say.”
Levenson, who has known Clarke for three decades, described her as “honest” and “very humble.”
“She doesn’t stand against the victims,” Levenson stressed. “I think she actually feels very much for the tragedy that occurred. But she has a job to do, which is to try to save her client’s life. And she does it with integrity.”
The two met during the Unabomber case, when Clarke was representing Kaczynski and Levenson was a legal commentator for CBS. Kaczynski at first resisted a plea deal sentencing him to life in prison because he did not want to admit to mental health issues.
Defense attorney Judy Clarke, at right, responds to questions at a press conference after the trial of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski was delayed in Sacramento, California, Jan. 8, 1998.(Rich Pedroncelli/AFP via Getty Images)
“She had a very difficult client, one that I think a lot of people would just sort of throw up their hands and say, ‘What can I do?’” Levenson recalled. “And she was able to get him to agree to that plea, which probably saved his life.”
Ted Kaczynski’s brother, David Kaczynski, praised Clarke for her ability to see humanity, even in those who have committed unspeakable atrocities.
“She has a really good heart, a really good intention,” David Kaczynski said. “I think she really cares about her clients. I think she has a kind of unconditional commitment to their humanity. And, of course, that meant a lot to me, because as much as I deplore what my brother did in harming people, I love him. He’s my brother.”
“So it’s a very fine line to walk, representing the client who has clearly got some serious personal problem,” he continued. “Ted was quite a loner. He was very shy. He had a very difficult time connecting with anybody. And in this very difficult situation, Judy was able to be there for him, and I think that was really meaningful for Ted, that he had some support, some human connection at this time of crisis in his life.”
David Kaczynski has followed Clarke’s career and continues to be impressed with her “professionalism and sense of humility.”
“I think the legal profession is trained to be strictly analytical and adversarial,” he said. “And she somehow works within this environment in a way that preserves her humanity as she’s trying to make people aware of the humanity of someone whose very right to exist is in question.”
Some question whether a person who has committed a heinous crime deserves a zealous defense. Levenson insists they do.
Our judicial system is “best served” when capital defendants are provided with a high-caliber defense, Levenson said, because “it’s in these situations where people are so emotionally invested that we can get it wrong.”
In addition to being a former prosecutor, Levenson created the Loyola Project for the Innocent, which works to get those who are serving sentences for crimes they did not commit out of prison.
Defense attorney Judy Clarke, seen here in Pittsburgh in 2023, is representing the man accused of murdering 11 Jews during Shabbat services in Pittsburgh in 2018. (Screenshot from KDKA report)
“I’ve seen firsthand that there are far too many lawyers who just immediately assume that their client’s not only guilty but should get the most severe punishment — that there’s nothing to be said on their client’s behalf,” Levenson said. “And you and I both know there’s a lot more to any given case, and that even people who do terrible crimes have other aspects of their lives that the justice system should consider.”
“In our system, we are supposed to consider each case, each individual, the facts, and not only determine whether someone’s guilty but what should happen to them,” she continued. “And that works well. When you have a lawyer who’s just going through the motions — and the one thing you can say about Judy is she doesn’t just go through the motions — I think the public can have more confidence in the verdict. As long as that lawyer is acting honestly and with integrity, it’s so much better to have that zealous advocate.”
The massacre at the Tree of Life building “was just a terrible, terrible, terrible tragedy,” said Levenson, who is Jewish. Clarke “will do her best to keep the case in perspective. In other words, focus not on big messages, but on this individual and any mitigating factors for this individual.”
Jon B. Gould, dean of the School of Social Ecology at the University of California-Irvine, has researched attorneys who specialize in death penalty cases. In 2019, along with Maya Pagni Barak, he published “Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America’s Death Penalty Lawyers,” a book based on extensive interviews, providing insight into the reasons someone would willingly represent a person who has committed an egregious crime.
“They are an unusual kind of lawyer,” Gould said. “They’re actually an unusual kind of person because for many of these cases, they are representing what is sometimes said to be ‘the worst of the worst.’”
There are a variety of motivating factors for capital defense work, Gould said. Some of these lawyers are strongly opposed to state-sanctioned killing. For others, he said, “it is the excitement of the most complicated kind of law.”
Other death penalty specialists take the cases for “professional prestige,” and some do it for the money because capital defense lawyers get paid more than regular defense lawyers, Gould said. Some take the cases for religious reasons.
“Now, that’s all in the larger context of none of these lawyers looks at the facts of the case and thinks it’s anything other than a horrific tragedy,” Gould stressed. “I also found that for many of them, they are entirely sympathetic to the family members of the victims. They don’t look at these cases and think, no big deal. They look at these cases and think that’s something horrible that happened to the victim’s family, but they also look at the defendant and think, as one of them said to me, ‘No one gets to this place of being the defendant without having something horrible having happened to them earlier in life.’”
Death penalty cases are “really, really, really hard on defense lawyers,” Gould added. “It’s really distressing work. The evidence that they have to pore through is horrific. Many of them have PTSD.”
While many people “look at defense lawyers and think there must be something wrong with them,” Gould said it’s essential to remember “that they are fulfilling a very important function in the criminal justice system that none of us would ever want to have to do.”
“That doesn’t mean that any of us is unsympathetic to the victims,” he emphasized. “No one deserves what’s happened in any of these cases. But if we do believe in the rule of law, then there needs to be capital defense lawyers. And we need to respect the work they’re doing because that’s what it means to live in a system of rule of law and not simply a system where we simply execute people in the town square without the opportunity to have a defense.”
This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial by the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle and the Pittsburgh Union Progress in a collaboration supported by funding from the Pittsburgh Media Partnership. It is reprinted with permission.
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What happened during the 2025 Israel-Iran war? A timeline.
(JTA) — The U.S.-Israeli military attack on Iran that launched early Saturday morning comes eight months after the last Israel-Iran war, in June 2025.
As we wait to see what happens in the current war, here’s a look back at how the 2025 conflict played out, from uneasy tensions to U.S. intervention to a grim death toll for Israelis.
- April 2024: First exchange of missiles between Israel and Iran in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic:
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May-June 2025: Tensions built in the weeks and days leading up to the attack, with the international community condemning Iran’s failure to abide by past nuclear agreements. Diplomatic efforts stalled as officials on all sides signaled that a direct confrontation was possible.
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June 13: Israel launches its attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and ballistic missile program, followed shortly by a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that retaliation by Iran was “expected in the immediate future.”
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June 13—: As Israel continues to pummel targets in Iran, Tehran counter-attacks, sending missiles almost nightly. Twenty-eight people are killed in Israel, including four women in an Arab town in northern Israel; a Ukrainian family that had come for cancer treatment for their daughter; and an activist at her home in Beersheba. Many others lost their homes. Flights, schools and workplaces are all massively disrupted.
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June 18: Donald Trump, who had run on a platform of opposing all war, sends mixed signals about whether he will jump in, as the Israelis clearly hoped he would. Trump tells reporters days into the conflict that “nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
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June 21: The United States joins the fight, striking three sites associated with Iran’s nuclear program, including Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan, alongside Israeli forces. The deeply buried facilities were seen as impossible to target without U.S. arms.
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June 23: Trump announces a ceasefire on social media. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council claims victory following the announcement despite striking Israel in its immediate wake. Israel does not say it had acceded to a ceasefire until many hours later.
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Aftermath: The extent of damage to the Iranian regime was unclear. Even on Saturday, as Trump renewed the fight against the Islamic Republic following negotiations that he said had not been satisfactory, he said last year’s strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. But the regime was rebuilding it, he and other observers said, and Iran had reportedly stockpiled more missiles than it had before the 2025 war. And the regime remained intact, clamping down a domestic protest movement by killing tens of thousands of protesters within 48 hours last month. Trump initially threatened to strike over the mass killings but did not.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post What happened during the 2025 Israel-Iran war? A timeline. appeared first on The Forward.
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Sirens, shelters and an empty Old City: Jerusalem rattled on the first day of war with Iran
(JTA) — JERUSALEM — Jacob Phillips’ first trip to Israel from his home in Germany was in 2023, to visit Holocaust survivors in Tel Aviv as part of a university program. It was cut short by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which forced him to leave the country.
He returned with his girlfriend this month to see the sites he missed. “Because the last trip, it was a harsh cut,” he said. “That’s why we came back, to visit the people I met here in Israel.”
On Saturday, Phillips and his girlfriend Michelle were among the very few people walking the streets in Jerusalem as another war unfolded, with Iran. The war, which began when Israel and the United States together attacked Iran early Saturday, had already sent them multiple times to shelters and scrambled their departure plans for next Thursday. Ben Gurion Airport is closed until at least March 7.
Phillips said he was in touch with the German consulate and felt safe in Jerusalem despite the incoming missiles, citing Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system. He said he remained happy to be in Israel.
“I wanted to come here to learn about the Jewish experience, especially as a German, and I feel like I have gotten to see so much of it,” Phillips said.
While missile impacts rocked Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel, an eerie calm pervaded the streets of Jerusalem on Saturday, extreme even for Shabbat, as residents hunkered down at home between the sirens that indicated that war with Iran had begun anew. The sirens scattered the prayer services that dot the holy city and disrupted plans for shared meals.
The gates of the Old City were closed by Israeli police to everyone but residents. A crowd of Hasidic Jews argued with officers, petitioning for entry to pray at the Western Wall but ultimately giving up and turning back.
One resident who ventured out between air raid alerts said the assault had provided “pauses just long enough to walk up the stairs before heading back [to the shelter] again.”
Those who braved journeys away from their homes offered a general consensus that the war would be significantly worse this time around, only nine months after a 12-day war that led to the deaths of 32 Israelis. In that conflict, Iran launched more than 500 ballistic missiles at Israel and targets throughout the Middle East in retaliation for strikes that Israel initiated and the United States joined.
This time is indeed different. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are gunning for regime change and said they believed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been killed in an opening salvo. Sensing an existential threat, the Islamic Republic of Iran has already escalated its response, using its firepower against not only Israel but U.S. targets throughout the Middle East.
Richard Weiner and Rolly Feld had been in Nahariya, in Israel’s north, until Saturday morning. When the sirens began, they drove back to Jerusalem in the hope they would be safer in the city and farther from significant military targets for the Iranian regime, including the port of Haifa, which was struck by an Iranian barrage at 10 a.m.
Feld recounted that while driving down Route 4 toward Jerusalem, it felt as if they were being chased by missiles. Periodically, another batch of air raid alerts would sound, forcing them to shelter in tunnels along the highway.
Feld said he would have preferred to continue driving, contrary to the advice of Israeli authorities who recommend pulling over and lying flat to avoid exposure to shrapnel from missile impacts.
“My wife wanted all the time to stick to the guidelines, to stop the car and stay away, and I keep driving fast then stopped in the tunnels. It’s a compromise,” Feld said.
Weiner, who grew up in Israel but has lived as an adult in South Africa, was critical of Netanyahu’s decision to launch the strikes.
“What he’s doing is horrible for the Iranian people and it’s horrible for the people over here. The government is pushing for this; the people are not.” Weiner identified himself as “something of a pacifist,” adding, “We have to look for other ways of dealing with the Iranian government, as irrational as they are. We should be supporting the people who are protesting and not trying to topple the government by killing the leadership.”
Weiner and Feld bantered back and forth on a sidewalk in the leafy neighborhood of Rehavia, discussing the possibility of further escalation and whether it was Israel’s place to intervene on behalf of the Iranian people — if that was indeed part of the calculus.
Weiner concluded, “I have a love-hate relationship with this country. I come back and this happens again. This is clearly not the answer. Many people will be killed, and it’s horrible that tens of thousands have been killed due to their dissent, but how does this help?”
The question of whether the war would succeed in the U.S.-Israeli ambition of achieving regime change in Iran was a preoccupation of many of those who were out and about.
“The chance of actual change is so low,” said Ishay, 44, a Jerusalem resident. “Like in Israel, there is such a strong contingent of those with radical beliefs in Iran. Even if the regime is toppled, who will replace Khamenei?”
Information was hard to come by throughout the day, though over time it became clear that missile impacts had been confirmed in multiple locations, including Bnei Brak, where Magen David Adom treated people who were wounded. By overnight, it was clear that one woman had been killed and another man had been seriously wounded in Tel Aviv.
The war comes as Israel prepares to celebrate Purim, a Jewish holiday commemorating the overthrow of an oppressive Persian regime, offering a powerful parallel for the current moment.
In the lead-up to the holiday, two Israelis stood talking down the street, seemingly unconcerned by the sirens, both in costume — one wearing a sombrero, the other dressed as a clown.
Yael, who lives in Rehavia, was walking her dog, Lucky, in Meir Sherman Garden Park in central Jerusalem.
“We’ve just come to expect this. I am raising my children here in Israel, but sometimes I wonder if there is a future here,” she said.
For Phillips, the fact that both of his visits to Israel have been derailed by two different conflicts did not dampen his support for Israel’s decision to launch the attacks on Iran.
“It’s time to change the regime there because of the nuclear weapons; it’s important to have this under control,” he said. “For Israel, it will be a hard time, I think, but nothing is free. You have to pay with something.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Sirens, shelters and an empty Old City: Jerusalem rattled on the first day of war with Iran appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel says Iranian supreme leader Khamenei killed during strikes on Tehran
(JTA) — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was killed Saturday morning during a joint U.S.-Israeli strike that hit targets throughout the country, Israeli officials have announced.
In a televised address late Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “growing signs” that Khamenei had been killed during an Israeli strike on his compound in Tehran. Shortly after the address, Israeli officials told Axios and the Associated Press that they had confirmed his death.
The alleged death of Khamenei, 86, who has ruled Iran since 1989 and was one of the world’s longest-serving authoritarian leaders, would serve as a major blow to the Islamic Republic regime, which Netanyahu and President Donald Trump both said they sought to topple in the strikes.
Trump cautiously confirmed the reports of Khamenei’s death on Saturday, telling NBC News about the Israeli report, “We feel that that is a correct story.” The president also told ABC correspondent Rachel Scott, “I don’t want to say anything definitively until I see things but we believe he is, and much of their leaders are gone.”
Iran appeared to deny claims that Khamenei had died on Saturday, with Iranian state media reporting that a source close to Khamenei’s office said, “I can tell you with confidence that the leader of the revolution is steadfast and firm in commanding the field,” according to Reuters.
Khamenei reportedly appointed a deputy to succeed him ahead of the strikes. But the CIA has assessed that he may be replaced by hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, according to Reuters.
Trump said he believed a large number of other Iranian officials were killed in the initial strikes, but neither he nor Israeli officials immediately named other officials they believed had been killed.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel says Iranian supreme leader Khamenei killed during strikes on Tehran appeared first on The Forward.