For Pittsburgh Jews, attack anniversary adds to an already grim October

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Jewish communities everywhere reacted with horror at last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, but the approaching one-year commemoration of the assault hits home particularly hard in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, which already marks a grim anniversary each October.

It was here on Oct. 27, 2018, that a gunman carried out the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, killing 11 worshippers from three congregations at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Adding to the intense feelings is the arrival of the Jewish High Holy Days — days that bracket the Oct. 7 anniversary with rituals focused on mortality and recalling the deaths of loved ones and ancient martyrs. Many are taking consolation in the rituals as they mark an emotionally fraught milestone.

“The trauma here runs deep in our community,” said Rabbi Seth Adelson of Congregation Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue near Tree of Life in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, the heart of Jewish Pittsburgh. “You can’t really separate the trauma of Jews being attacked in Pittsburgh and Jews being attacked in Israel.”

The Pittsburgh attack was carried out by a right-wing extremist who targeted Jews for their aid to immigrants. It was followed by widespread civic support for the Jewish community.

The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed 1,200 Israelis and triggered a still-ongoing war in Gaza.

The attacks have common threads, say local Jewish leaders. The synagogue attack violated the sanctuary of a place of worship. The Hamas attack has been followed by an upsurge of antisemitic incidents around the world.

“The similarity of what Oct. 7 and Oct. 27 hold together is a question of safety for Jews,” said Maggie Feinstein, director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership, which aids those traumatized by the 2018 attack.

Emboldened far-right extremists have been spreading Holocaust denial and other antisemitic screeds. Some on the left have expressed antisemitism along with criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war, while debate persists over the line between robust criticism and hate speech.

Nationally, nearly two-thirds of Jews feel less secure than they did a year previously, according to an American Jewish Committee survey earlier this year.

In Pittsburgh, a man was charged in September for allegedly attacking two university students wearing yarmulkes, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.

A synagogue and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh office were targeted with graffiti. Parents of Jewish college students say their children have endured antisemitism amid protests critical of Israel.

Rabbi Daniel Yolkut of Congregation Poale Zedeck in Squirrel Hill said it’s become “unremarkable” for his children to hear antisemitic slurs shouted by motorists.

Rabbi Adelson said that unlike in 2018, local Jews haven’t felt widespread community solidarity.

“There’s this feeling that Israel was attacked and then the attacks just continued here,” he said.

Many in Pittsburgh have lived in Israel or have friends or relatives there. For Yolkut, one connection is especially poignant.

As a rabbi in Virginia years ago, his congregants included the family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who in 2023 was taken hostage by Hamas.

“I remember him just as a small child running around my synagogue,” Yolkut recalled. He was devastated to learn weeks ago that Goldberg-Polin was killed by Hamas at age 23, along with five other hostages.

As Oct. 7 approaches, Feinstein said Pittsburgh Jews are already familiar with the “anniversary effect” — the emotional churn around a traumatic calendar date. Each year since 2019, the community has held memorial services honoring the 11 lives lost on 10/27, as the synagogue attack is known locally.

She reminds people that emotions around anniversaries are natural: “Whatever we’re feeling, we shouldn’t feel shame.”

Members of all three congregations worshipping at Tree of Life were killed that Sabbath morning in 2018 — the host congregation, Dor Hadash and New Light.

News of last year’s Hamas raid arrived on another Sabbath, just weeks after the conclusion of a lengthy federal trial in which the Pittsburgh assailant was sentenced to death on 63 criminal counts.

That trial confirmed in previously unknown detail how the gunman absorbed white supremacist ideology online and spread the slander that Jews were bringing in immigrants of color to replace white Americans. He targeted Dor Hadash in particular for its support of a national Jewish agency that helps refugees.

Then came October 7.

“The timing was very difficult because some people had not calmed down from their very high level of anxiety from the trial,” said Rabbi Amy Bardack of Congregation Dor Hadash. Both attacks raised gut-level questions: “Are Jews safe in the world?”

The war has worsened divisions on the left. Most US Jews are liberal politically and vote Democratic, but many progressive Democrats have supported Palestinians and claim Israel’s campaign in Gaza amounts to war crimes and genocide — charges that Israel and its supporters strenuously dispute.

Some Jewish groups dissent from the broad pro-Zionist consensus of established Jewish groups and oppose US military aid to Israel.

Jewish community members acknowledge broad differences within their families and congregations, though most support Israel as a Jewish state and safe haven for Jews.

“Everybody wants peace,” Adelson said, “But there is a strong feeling that Israelis deserve to live in peace and not to be subject to the threats and rocket attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah.”

The disputes have flared locally, such as a recent failed effort by some Pittsburgh organizations to bar the city from doing business with entities linked to Israel.

Rebecca Elhassid now volunteers for the new Beacon Coalition, which researches local politicians’ views on Israel and Jews.

Until now, “we didn’t think to understand what a city councilperson thought about the Jewish community they represent,” she said.

“For many years, we were able to put our Jewish identity aside in terms of our social priorities,” she said. “We were able to dedicate much of our social resources toward supporting other marginalized communities and identifying other problems in societies. We are going to have to stand up for ourselves in a way we weren’t aware we had to before.”

The danger from the far right was well-known, but antisemitism from parts of the progressive left has hit closer to home.

“All my old colleagues, with whom I’ve done many things over the years with civil rights and voting rights and gay rights and all kinds of women’s rights, and I’m seeing them on the other side of an issue,” said Tree of Life member Audrey Glickman, a survivor of the 2018 attack. “That’s been personally difficult for me, because it’s hard to talk to people when they think you’re choosing the wrong side.”

But she’s determined to maintain dialogue and has continued to visit schools and other settings, spreading the word against antisemitism and other hatreds.

“If we don’t talk to each other, we don’t get anywhere,” she said. “I always feel more motivated to get out there and pull people together. If you don’t keep your optimism going, what good is it?”

The High Holy Days add to the sober commemorations of this season.

“It’s in our prayers that we need to understand the precariousness of life and our mortality,” Bardack said. “There’s also joyful themes, but it’s with the understanding that we don’t know what the future holds.”

She said her congregation has had hard discussions about the war and Israeli policy. She sees her job as helping congregants navigate the complex moment.

“We can’t control the Israel-Hamas war, and we can’t control antisemitism,” she said. “There’s only one thing we can control, which is how we treat each other, how we keep loving and kind connections to each other across differences of ideology.”