The murder of eleven Jews at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue three years ago in October 2018 was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.
On this episode, journalist Mark Oppenheimer, author of the new book Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and The Soul of a Neighborhood, joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi for a wide-ranging discussion of the aftermath of that event.
Oppenheimer focuses not on the shooting and the gunman, but rather on the century-old currents of Judaism in Pittsburgh, the variety of religious beliefs and practices visible after the attack, and the resilience of Squirrel Hill.
For further reading:
- ‘Death at the Tree of Life,’ Wesley Hill
- ‘From Trotsky to Soros,’ James J. Sheehan
- ‘The Author and the Expert,’ Tzvi Novick
“Literature on mass killings tends to focus on the killer and the crime. But I was interested in the suffering—and the resilience—of this particular community.”—Mark Oppenheimer