The Pitt News
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T h e i n d e p e n d e n t s t ude nt ne w spap e r of t he U niversity of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | october 28, 2019 | Volume 110 | Issue 52
ONE YEAR LATER, COMMUNITY CONTINUES TO HEAL AFTER TREE OF LIFE ATTACK
PITTSBURGHERS COMMEMORATE MASSACRE WITH DAY OF SERVICE Rebecca Johnson Staff Writer
These three words served as the night’s theme — projected onto screens as attendees arrived, incorporated into the event’s logo and repeated many times by various speakers. Jamie Lebovitz, a 54-year-old Mt. Lebanon resident who grew up in Squirrel Hill and volunteered for Jewish Hearts for Pittsburgh, said that she appreciated the focus on these phrases. “The service meant so much to me because it wasn’t dwelling on … what happened last year, it’s where we go into the future, together,” Lebovitz said. “That was the message that I felt, was we need to work together and be together to move towards a better future.”
When Gary Dubin biked into the Shadyside EMS station on Sunday morning, he wasn’t looking for help — he was delivering freshly baked cookies. Dubin, the director of development at the Medical and Health Sciences Foundation at UPMC, was one of 44 cyclists who brought baked goods to first responders at 11 sites across Pittsburgh’s East End that morning. He wanted to express gratitude to those who helped his family during the Tree of Life massacre last year. “I’m Jewish, and one of the synagogues in the Tree of Life building, my father-in-law was in it,” Dubin said. “There are few words that could say what it meant to have the first responders come out and give back to the Jewish community.” When a gunman opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, every first-responder site in Pittsburgh answered. Along with the cyclists, a cohort of drivers visited 41 other sites throughout the City to honor first responders for the one-year commemoration of the Tree of Life massacre. The Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh organized the delivery with various congregations, Jewish organizations and victims’ families. The event was one of 31 service activities happening around Pittsburgh on Sunday. Kate Rothstein, who works with the Federation, said the bike event was one way to unite the Pittsburgh community
See Gathering on page 2
See Service on page 3
Family members of the victims of the Tree of Life massacre light candles in their memory. Members of the community gathered in Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall on Sunday evening to commemorate one year after the attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue. Carolyn Pallof | staff photographer
Sarah Berg and Madison Brewer Staff Writers
Rose Mallinger loved to dance. Joyce Fienberg helped everyone she could. David and Cecil Rosenthal were called “the boys,” and were inseparable. In a video played at a large memorial Sunday, family members described their loved ones whose lives, and those of seven other Jews, were taken on Oct. 27, 2018. In remembrance of the victims of the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue, more than 2,000 people traveled Sunday evening to the gathering at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall for a community event involving speeches, prayers and music. The Tree of Life massacre took the lives
of 11 Jewish worshippers attending Saturday services across the synagogue’s three different congregations, located in Squirrel Hill — a close-knit City neighborhood known for its acceptance and tolerance. It is the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that fights anti-Semitism. Rabbi Amy Bardack, of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, said the commemoration was created in line with the wishes of the victims’ families, who sat in the front of the hall, just behind the speakers. “We asked them what was most important for them on this day, and three words kept emerging,” Bardack said. “Remember, repair, together.”