Shabbat was approaching, but Rabbi Jeffrey Myers didn’t have time to write his Saturday morning sermon. And this wasn’t just any Shabbat — it was the first Shabbat after the shooting that killed seven of his congregants, and four others. But on Friday afternoon, he officiated at a funeral. Then he was attending a shiva…
Cecil. David. Rose. Joyce. Sylvan. Bernice. Last Saturday, those six, along with seven other worshippers killed inside the Tree of Life synagogue building on October 27, became part of the long list of Jewish martyrs. But before that, they were six friendly faces that the middle schoolers of nearby Community Day School knew from attending…
My name is Johanna Reiss. You may already know it; I am the Author of the memoir The Upstairs Room and other books about my experiences as a Jewish child hidden in Holland during World War II and how I managed to live through it. Since 1945, I thought I was done with my old…
Before October 27th, if anyone told us that Pittsburgh’s Jewish community would be thrust into the national spotlight as the target of the deadliest attack on Jews in American history, we would not have believed it. For the past two years, under the banner of Bend the Arc: Pittsburgh, we had been organizing locally in…
In response to the horrific synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, we asked three of the Forward’s Campus Ambassadors to tell us how they are dealing with the tragedy in their universities and home communities. Their responses are below. What was your reaction when you heard the news of the shooting in Pittsburgh? Where were you and…
Eleven people were tragically killed last month in Pittsburgh when a gunman attacked the Tree of Life Synagogue in an apparent anti-Semitic hate crime. Reports indicate that the synagogue had created a security plan and had practiced active-shooter drills, yet Tree of Life had its doors open during Saturday’s Shabbat service. This is an extremely…
On October 27, 11 Jews were murdered at the hands of a white nationalist named Robert Bowers. When I heard the news of this horrific defilement, I felt paralyzed with fear and despair. I cried and said Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, as my partner held me. Upon hearing the news of the attack,…
On Shabbat morning October 27, I was visiting my former community of Boca Raton, Florida for Shabbat. I was running a Teen Shabbaton in the local Synagogue, and Congressman Deutch was the featured after-lunch speaker. Minutes before, he had told me privately about the shooting in Pittsburgh, and I had asked him not to disturb…
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