A Trial in Pittsburgh: A Turning Point for American Jews
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
June 2, 2023
Four and a half years ago, on Shabbat morning Oct. 27, 2018, an armed man walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and opened fire, killing 11 worshippers: Joyce Fienberg, age 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, 59 and 54 respectively; husband and wife Sylvan and Bernice Simon, 86 and 84; Daniel Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 88; and Irving Younger, 69 years of age. May the memory of each and every one of them be a blessing.
The murderer has been charged with 63 federal crimes, including 11 counts of obstruction of free religious exercise resulting in death, and 11 counts of hate crimes resulting in death, legalese jargon meant to disguise the fact that this was the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history.
And perhaps that’s one of the purposes of justice in America—to obstruct the connection between a crime and its emotional impact and weigh every case in simple terms of right and wrong, guilt and innocence.
In the case of the Tree of Life Massacre, however, nothing is as simple as it seems. To begin with, the guilt of the killer has never been in doubt. No one disputes that he pulled the trigger. Rather, what the defense hopes to prove is that his actions were not the result of religious hatred per se, but rather the result of a deranged mind. Just another senseless mass killing in a country that is becoming numb to violence and hatred.
But this crime wasn’t senseless, and that’s one reason why this trial is so important. An attack on a synagogue on a Shabbat morning is never accidental. Its motivation cannot be anything but anti-Semitism, the longest and most violent hatred in human history, now re-emerging in America.
Three days ago, four and a half years after the massacre, the trial finally opened.
One reason for this long stretch of time has been the COVID pandemic, which put a near-halt to almost all court cases. Another reason has been a lengthy wrangling over the death penalty, which the prosecution seeks.
Yet without a doubt, one of the main reasons for the delay has been the defense attorney’s goal to let time intervene, “to get distance between the event and the trial in the hopes that the impact of the event will have somewhat dissipated.” While, in itself, this is indeed one of the paths Justice must take—to take the emotions out of the picture and examine the facts as objectively as possible—for many of us this is impossible.
For me, at least, anti-Semitism isn’t history. Though not a direct victim, I grew up with intimate knowledge of the Holocaust. There isn’t a day in my life that I can recall when its horrors and pain were not a factor in my consciousness. No amount of time will separate my emotions from any act of anti-Semitism, least of all one so horrendous as the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting.
In the opening statement, Prosecutor Soo Song pointed to the arsenal with which the murderer arrived at the Tree of Life Synagogue: Three Glocks and an AR-15. His goal, stated Song, was to “destroy, to kill and defile.” As she described for the jury the killing of each victim, “the defendant betrayed no emotion but some family members of the victims began to weep.” It's clear that for many, the pain is still as intense today as it was four and a half years ago.
In the opening arguments for the defense, lawyer Judy Clarke acknowledged that her client was the shooter. However, she claimed that his motive was not specifically anti-Semitism, but rather his belief that he was acting to stop HIAS—the Hebrew Aid Society, a Jewish-American nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees. In the mind of the killer, argued Ms. Clarke, the refugees were hostile “invaders.” In other words, he was defending what he saw as his country from those who wished to harm and destroy it.
In this line of argument, what’s on trial in this case is the killer’s misguided patriotism, not his hatred for Jews, despite the fact that that he posted these precise thoughts and opinions on several white supremacist websites.
Anti-Semitism may not be the killer’s only hatred, but it is the one that led him to a synagogue full of Jewish worshippers on a Sabbath morning. This is not the working of some deranged mind. His act was calculated and reasoned out.
The synagogue attack four and a half years ago has led to many changes in our lives. There’s hardly a temple, Federation or any other Jewish institution anywhere in the United States today that hasn’t hired security personnel and held safety training for its members and employees. After 9/11, a national organization, Secure Community Network, was created by the Jewish Federations of North America. This organization has grown exponentially over the past five years, expanding most rapidly especially after the Pittsburgh shooting.
What we are seeing today is a new mentality among the Jewish community. For the last hundred years, Jews have been reevaluating our place in history and our legitimate rights as human beings and as a people. Discrimination in western Europe and pogroms in eastern Europe led to the creation of self-defense groups and eventually to the creation of the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Force.
In America, perhaps out of the fear of rocking the boat, perhaps out of our hopeful but unrealistic perception that anti-Semitism was a thing of the past, we’ve mainly kept silent.
As American Jews, our main recourse today is the judicial system. The trial that just opened in Pittsburgh must be seen as a turning point, a wake-up call, a benchmark by which anti-Semitism in America will be judged from this point on.
The world as a whole is looking at Pittsburgh to see what America’s reaction to this violent hatred will be. For the Jewish American community, the massacre serves to remind us that we must never—never! —let down our guard.
Terror will never stop us. If anything, this reminder of the reality of our existence may motivate us to dig deeper into our roots and legacy, to acknowledge with greater pride our cultural and religious identity; never to cringe in fear, but rather always to stand up in defense of our human and civil rights.
Four and a half years ago, on Shabbat morning Oct. 27, 2018, the lives of 11 men and women were taken from them because they were Jewish. May their memories be the building blocks on which a new world arises—a world in which hatred and violence are not tolerated—not against Jews, not against Blacks, not against refugees from war-torn and impoverished countries, or against any other minority.
This is my prayer.
© 2023 by Boaz D. Heilman
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