Scars that linger

HBO’s ‘The Pitt’ pays homage to 2018 Tree of Life shooting

Dr. Robby Robinavitch, played by Noah Wyle, treats a patient who survived the attack; she later thanks a Hijab-wearing nurse for the Muslim community’s support after the shooting

By ToI Staff 24 January 2026, 9:11 am

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Noah Wyle in HBO's 'The Pitt.' (Warrick Page/MAX via JTA)

In the latest episode of “The Pitt,” the HBO drama starring Noah Wyle as a Jewish doctor working at a hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the show references the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in the city.

In episode 3 of season 2, Wyle’s character, Dr. Robby Robinavitch, treats a Jewish woman named Yana Kovalenko, played by Irina Dubovna, who suffered burns after dropping a samovar.

While treating her wounds, Kovalenko tells Dr. Robinavitch that she belongs to the Tree of Life synagogue, and he responds that he heard it is being rebuilt.

“Yes, something new, ‘Remember, Rebuild, Renew,’ that’s their slogan,” she says, referencing the actual name of Tree of Life’s campaign to rebuild the temple.

When Robinavitch mentions that Kovalenko dropped the samovar after being startled by fireworks on the Fourth of July, she reveals that she was traumatized by the shooting.

“I was on my way inside, October 27th, 2018. To the synagogue, when the shooting started,” she says. “There’s nothing I could do. I went in after the police arrived. I felt I had to. I’m better now, but New Year’s Eve, Fourth of July, when kids have their fireworks and firecrackers…”

A sign hangs from a fence outside the dormant landmark Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, Oct. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

“There is no clock on how long it takes,” Robinavitch responds.

In another scene in the episode, Kovalenko thanks Perlah, a hijab-wearing nurse, for the Muslim community’s support in helping fund the funerals after the shooting.

“That being such a significant event in the city of Pittsburgh, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity,” Wyle, who also wrote the episode, told Variety.

“When I started researching it, the aspects of it that moved me the most were the community outcry afterward from the Muslim community and the solidarity with the Jewish community of Pittsburgh working together to grieve and mourn the loss,” said Wyle, whose father is Jewish. “It was the most underreported aspect of the story, and perhaps the most hopeful moving forward.”

In the aftermath of the shooting, two Muslim American groups raised $238,624 in a crowdfunding campaign for the surviving victims.

In this combo image made from photos provided by the US District Court Western District of Pennsylvania are the victims of the October 27, 2018, assault on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. On the top row, from left: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, and David Rosenthal; bottom row, from left, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Dan Stein, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger. (United States District Court Western District of Pennsylvania via AP)

A mostly elderly group of 11 people was gunned down in the bloody assault on the Tree of Life synagogue on a Saturday morning by shooter Robert Bowers, who said he “wanted all Jews to die,” while six more were wounded in the attack. The massacre was the most deadly attack on a local Jewish community in US history.