A path of light.
For five years, they waded through tides of healing and commemoration. A monthslong trial that was punctuated with a death sentence and reopened old wounds. Hundreds of Shabbat services led in borrowed homes.
After it all, a path of light — a key feature of the 45,000-square-foot structure Pittsburgh’s Jewish community hopes to raise $75 million to build — is what drives those working to reinvent the site of the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
This Friday marks five years since a gunman entered the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha synagogue and killed 11 Jewish worshippers during an Oct. 27, 2018, Shabbat service.
In rebuilding efforts, the light begins in the sanctuary’s arc: the storage space for the congregation’s Torah, set against an eastern wall pointing toward Jerusalem, Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers said. The light then will travel across the building into a 45-foot-tall glass atrium, where visitors can enter from nearby Wilkins Avenue.
“Even out of the darkness of what transpired, light came through,” said Myers, a New Jersey native
who joined Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha in Squirrel Hill and led his first service there on July 31, 2017. “It’s a powerful metaphysical and spiritual element of the new building.”
“The heart of what we’re building is 11 Jews who were murdered — and the pain, grief, ongoing sadness and devastation of every one of those family members and survivors,” added Tree of Life CEO Carole Zawatsky, 65, of Shadyside, who — before coming to Pittsburgh last year — expanded her Jewish philanthropic career by leading Edlavitch Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C. “Our work is
there to uplift those voices. Our work is there to ensure these victims are never forgotten.”
Killed in the synagogue attack were Rose Mallinger, 97; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Dan Stein, 71; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Melvin Wax, 87; Irving Younger, 69; and Richard Gottfried, 65.
They were members of the Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations, all housed in the same building.
The gunman, Robert Bowers, 50, of Baldwin, was sentenced to death on Aug. 3 after a jury heard from 51 witnesses over nine days of testimony in his trial’s penalty phase. The trial stretched out over months under an intense media spotlight in a Downtown federal courtroom.
Bowers was found guilty of all 63 federal counts against him. Today, he is on death row in an Indiana penitentiary.
Rebuilding
A new nonprofit named Tree of Life is spearheading efforts to rebuild at the corner of Wilkins and Shady avenues.
In addition to housing a synagogue where future generations of Jews will worship, the planned building will be one part memorial to those killed and one part museum addressing antisemitism, the first of its kind in the United States, Zawatsky said.
“This is a story that is a Pittsburgh story — it happened in Pittsburgh, and this couldn’t be built anywhere else,” said Zawatsky, who served as chief advancement and strategy officer for the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia before joining Tree of Life in November 2022. “(The building) is grounded in this story. And it’s everyone’s story — it’s every Jew’s story, it’s every human being’s story.
“This is very much a Pittsburgh institution with a national reach.”
Work at the site is designed to match the ambitions of those behind it.
The new building was conceptualized by Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, who played a role in developing the Ground Zero skyscraper once known as Freedom Tower, which replaced the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Libeskind also designed the Jewish Museum Berlin, which opened to the public in 2001, according to his website. Libeskind created the design a year before the Berlin Wall came down.
Officials hope the new Tree of Life will become an iconic Pittsburgh site.
The new building will retain the familiar, multistory beige edifice that faces Shady Avenue. The rest will be razed early next year, Zawatsky said. About 20% smaller than the existing building, the new structure will include a synagogue and memorial, as well as spaces for exhibitions, offices, even a 400-plus-seat movie theater, Zawatsky said.
‘It’s something we’re
going to be proud of’
It’s too early to say what it might cost to rebuild the Tree of Life, several individuals said.
Officials aim to raise the $75 million from local and national donors, Zawatsky said. That will cover construction, five years of operating budgets and an endowment ensuring long-term financial health.
In 2021, the state granted an additional $6.6 million toward the redevelopment effort.
Not all money raised, though, will fund the new building, several people close to the work said. About $6.3 million raised in the wake of the shootings already was disbursed to victims’ families and the affected congregations.
Contractors recently kicked off asbestos remediation at the site, said Michael Bernstein, 56, of Squirrel Hill, a businessman who chairs Tree of Life’s interim governance committee. The fibrous material, which can lead to lung cancer and other maladies, was found in the building’s floors, walls, ceilings and light fixtures.
If all goes according to plan, Zawatsky estimates the new Tree of Life will open to the public in about 30 months.
“The effort to rebuild is a noble effort,” Bernstein said. “Unfortunately, the scale … required an approach that was more expansive and bigger than what the congregation expected.
“I think it’s something we’re going to be proud of in our city.”
Zawatsky took that sentiment a step further.
“Daniel Libeskind is an artist … and this will be an iconic building that adds to the landscape of Pittsburgh,” she said. “He is one of the true treasures as an architect. I believe this building is a gift to the city of Pittsburgh.”
At least one Jewish scholar, Brandeis University professor Jonathan D. Sarna, said Tree of Life’s pace to rebuild is in line with religious sites that strove to adopt national identities.
He cited the Eldridge Street Synagogue in New York City, now The Museum at Eldridge Street, whose Lower East Side lineage tells larger stories about Jewish immigrants in the U.S.
The American tendency to carefully or even slowly plot out redevelopment at sites where tragedy struck — such as Manhattan’s World Trade Center — is far from universal.
“In Israel, the policy has been to try and rebuild as quickly as possible, and return to normalcy,” said Sarna, whose wife, theology professor Ruth Langer, hails from Pittsburgh. “The Israelis have looked in confusion at the fact that we leave the ruins for a long time. They have done the exact opposite.”
‘A deep commitment’
Though today Jeff Solomon lives in Westchester County, N.Y., and serves as president of a Manhattan-based investment bank, the Pittsburgh native grew up as just another Jewish kid in Squirrel Hill.
He celebrated his bar mitzvah at the Tree of Life synagogue on March 31, 1979. His parents continue to attend services there.
Solomon met his wife, Linda, in middle school and graduated in 1984 from Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill. All three of his children, now ages 20 to 28, attended the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh’s Emma Kaufmann Camp near Morgantown, W.Va.
“You can take the boy out of Pittsburgh but you can’t take the Pittsburgh out of the boy,” laughed Solomon, 57, who has co-chaired the Jewish community’s biggest capital campaign to date for more than three years.
Solomon said Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli civilians — which killed 1,400 people, injured thousands more, and involved more than 200 kidnappings — gives Tree of Life’s mission to fight antisemitism more urgency.
“There’s a deep sense of personal responsibility. It’s, ‘How can we help?’ ” Solomon said. “Our grandkids will ask, ‘What did you do?’ The answer can’t be nothing. This project has taken on much bigger meaning since it started.”
Solomon declined to say how much money his campaign has raised.
“We’ve got a ways to go,” Solomon said. “But there’s deep commitment to the project from some significant institutions, both in Pittsburgh and nationally.”
He also declined to name any of the donors.
Some worry that, five years after the synagogue shooting, the new Tree of Life building hasn’t been constructed and Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha services still are held at Rodef Shalom Congregation.
Solomon defends the pace of the work. It takes time to build consensus around a project, he stressed.
“Nobody on the committee that’s governing this is willing to have this go any faster than it should go,” he added. “And I think that’s deeply compassionate and appropriate.”
The Tree of Life synagogue has long illustrated Jewish trends — and reflected Jewish history — in Pittsburgh, according to Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Sen. John Heinz History Center.
Tree of Life was founded in 1864 in Downtown, then the epicenter of religious life in Western Pennsylvania, Lidji said.
The shul’s origins, like many of its vintage, are modest: Its 1865 charter was signed by just 17 people, Lidji said. The first service took place in synagogue President Gustav Grafner’s Downtown home.
After holding services in a Downtown church, the congregation moved into Oakland as the city’s — and the Jewish — population swelled there, Lidji said. In 1907, they built a synagogue on Oakland’s Craft Avenue.
The Oakland building, which later served as home to Pittsburgh Playhouse, was demolished in 2019. A time capsule found in the synagogue’s cornerstone included daily newspapers from the era, as well as a Heinz pickle pin.
As Jews started growing a community in Squirrel Hill, Tree of Life migrated, too, buying its current corner lot, a few blocks away from the neighborhood’s business district, in 1946, Lidji said.
They dedicated the original synagogue, which included Pervin Chapel, in 1952.
In 1964, the synagogue added its trademark beige edifice, which boasted a 1,400-seat sanctuary, Lidji said. Additions followed in the 1970s and 1990s.
‘We are Tree of Life’
Five years later, Alan Hausman still grapples with how the synagogue shooting unfolded.
Hausman, 64, has attended Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha services for years. The synagogue’s current president, Hausman has worked as an emergency management specialist in Pittsburgh for decades. He was in Lancaster County the morning of Oct. 27, 2018, picking pumpkins for Halloween with his wife.
His cellphone buzzed.
“Active shooter, Tree of Life,” the text read.
His first thought? “I am letting my responders down,” he said. “I am not there for them.”
Hausman quickly rounded up his team, set up the Jewish Community Center on Forbes Avenue as a “reunification site,” and then raced back to Pittsburgh, making “gazillions of calls” along the way. His cellphone was exploding with emails and Facebook Messenger notices.
About 30 minutes into the drive, the emergency operations center started diverting police-radio chatter to his phone: “Shots fired,” an officer would announce. “Officer down!”
When Hausman arrived in Squirrel Hill about 3 p.m. and walked up to the synagogue, he remembers going weak in the knees. He grabbed a nearby police cruiser for support.
His adrenaline eventually kicked in. But Hausman still didn’t want to see fellow congregants’ bodies. He learned a lot during the shooter’s trial about the carnage left behind.
“The mental health aspect of it? It’s challenging,” said Hausman, who grew up — and currently lives — on Squirrel Hill’s Shady Avenue. “I don’t really relive it. But I have to live with it. And the guilt is just terrible.”
Hausman said he appreciates Rodef Shalom Congregation, a temple on the Oakland/Shadyside border where Tree of Life has staged scores of Shabbat services, as well as funerals for the shooting victims, since 2018.
“We can find community wherever we gather,” said Myers, the rabbi. “We are Tree of Life, no matter where we are.”
“We can use our new building to show that we could work together,” Hausman added. “We’d see we’re all people. If we can do that, then we’ve done these people — the victims — an honor, by taking a tragedy and turning it into something positive.”
He’s not looking forward to another commemoration, another Oct. 27.
“Everyone always says, ‘Time heals all wounds,’ ” Hausman said. “Well, time doesn’t heal all wounds — you just learn how to deal with it. But it never goes away.”
Justin Vellucci is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Justin at jvellucci@triblive.com.
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