Afrigather PITTSBURGH (RNS) — On a blocked-off road behind the Jewish Neighborhood Middle within the bustling coronary heart of Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, roughly 1,000 folks stood shoulder to shoulder Monday (Oct. 7) to commemorate the Hamas bloodbath in southern Israel a yr in the past. Some waved Israeli flags or held photographs of hostages. A large range of Jews prayed, sang and remembered the 1,200 Israelis killed and 250 kidnapped into Gaza.
“This show of unity tonight represents group members with totally different Jewish observance from totally different geographies inside the Pittsburgh area, totally different ages. That is what our Jewish group is all about,” stated Jeffrey Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Larger Pittsburgh, which hosted the occasion.
Because the solar set on the brisk, clear night, Michal Alon, a nurse who survived the assaults in Israel final yr, shared her account of being shot thrice by a Hamas militant whereas visiting a navy base. Although she is just not from Pittsburgh, Alon stated she was “thrilled” that so many members of the Diaspora have been current to acknowledge the gravity of Oct. 7.
An hour earlier, and simply two miles west in a park bordering Squirrel Hill, about 150 assembled on a grassy hill for an interfaith vigil that was equally solemn.
“Tonight is a vigil to honor the martyrs which have fallen, which have been killed by Israel’s invasion of Gaza in the course of the previous yr,” stated Mia Suwaid, a College of Pittsburgh pupil who co-leads the college’s chapter of College students for Justice in Palestine. The occasion started with a speech by Karim Alshurafa, a neighborhood Palestinian who listed the names of greater than 20 relations killed in Gaza over the past yr. Practically 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s battle of retaliation on Gaza.
Karim Alshurafa, left, addresses an interfaith vigil at Schenley Park, Oct. 7, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (RNS photograph/Kathryn Submit)
In some ways, the 2 occasions exemplify the broader tensions which have enveloped the town over the past yr between defenders of Israel and those that stand in solidarity with Palestinians, a few of whom are additionally Jewish. In August, a proposed poll measure that might have barred the town of Pittsburgh from conducting enterprise with entities which have ties to Israel was in the end withdrawn, however not earlier than the specter of authorized challenges by Jewish leaders involved that the proposal might endanger synagogues and Jewish organizations. Teams reminiscent of College students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace have hosted a number of Palestinian liberation rallies within the Oakland neighborhood — dwelling to the College of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon College — as members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish communities continued to fulfill in close by Squirrel Hill each Sunday for a vigil calling for the rescue of Israeli hostages.
In August, two Jewish college students sporting yarmulkes have been attacked by a person wielding a glass bottle and sporting a kaffiyeh on the College of Pittsburgh’s campus. (College students for Justice in Palestine promptly condemned the violence in a press release.) One month earlier, the Jewish Federation of Larger Pittsburgh and Chabad of Squirrel Hill have been vandalized with phrases reminiscent of “Jews 4 Palestine” and “funds genocide” in pink graffiti.
Ayala Rosenthal, who just lately started attending graduate college on the College of Pittsburgh, stated the ambiance on the college has made her nervous about publicly figuring out as Jewish.
“I nonetheless really feel like I’m going to campus because the odd one out, or the one who needs to be cautious of her environment and aware of what I say and aware of what I share, and aware of the Jewish symbols that I present,” stated Rosenthal, who lived in Israel for a lot of final yr. “And that’s actually, actually disappointing.”
For Pittsburgh’s Jewish group, October is already a somber month — Oct. 27 will mark six years because the deadliest antisemitic assault in U.S. historical past claimed the lives of 11 worshippers at a Squirrel Hill synagogue.
“These are each pivotal, devastating moments in Jewish historical past that occurred in a five-year timeframe. And so I feel that the Pittsburgh Jewish group is de facto feeling that,” stated Laura Cherner, director of group relations of the Jewish Federation of Larger Pittsburgh.
Michal Alon, together with her son to the best, speaks throughout a service on the Jewish Neighborhood Middle to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Hamas assaults on Israel, Oct. 7, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (RNS photograph/Kathryn Submit)
Nonetheless, whereas many instructed RNS the aftershocks of Oct. 7 have been uniquely felt by Pittsburgh’s Jewish residents, most have been additionally fast to insist that the occasions of Oct. 27, 2018, and Oct. 7, 2023, shouldn’t be conflated — one an ongoing geopolitical battle, the opposite a mass, hate-fueled capturing.
“Nobody trauma ever occurs in a vacuum, and it’s necessary that we attempt to heal one wound at a time,” stated Maggie Feinstein, director of the ten.27 Therapeutic Partnership, which helps these impacted by the 2018 capturing. “So it’s a giant problem in that the act of engaged on our personal therapeutic from one wound will assist us heal from different wounds, however we will’t heal from all the things unexpectedly.”
However many members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish communities can’t assist however evaluate the responses to the 2 assaults. Beth Kissileff, whose husband, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Gentle Congregation, survived the 2018 synagogue assault, stated there was unconditional help from “each section” of the Pittsburgh group, to not point out solidarity from throughout the nation and the world, six years in the past.
Shira Bauman, left, and Mia Olenick, vp and president of Hillel, a Jewish pupil group, at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne College, on the Jewish Neighborhood Middle, Oct. 7, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (RNS photograph/Kathryn Submit)
“We simply felt so cared for, and the priority of so many individuals, and it was such a significant and exquisite and therapeutic factor to get that outreach from so many locations,” stated Kissileff. “After Oct. 7, not solely is there a scarcity of sympathy … folks have been antagonistic to the Jewish group. And that’s even earlier than Israel did any counterattack in Gaza.”
Audrey Glickman, a longtime member of the Tree of Life synagogue and a survivor of the 2018 assault, stated previous associates and colleagues in Pittsburgh who used to collaborate together with her on civil rights efforts not appear open to dialogue and consensus.
“I see them on the other facet of the aisle now, speaking in opposition to Israel, to the extent that folks on that facet of the aisle are talking in opposition to Jews as nicely. And that’s laborious to take care of,” stated Glickman. “And I don’t suppose it’s based mostly on good info. … It’s all very sophisticated. And we don’t appear to have anybody standing up and saying, ‘Let’s actually have a look at the whole historical past of all of this, and see the place it’s coming from.’”
Amid the worry and grief, members of Pittsburgh’s politically and theologically various Jewish group are turning towards each other for help at official occasions and vigils, and over vacation meals.
“One thing that we’ve stated lots just lately is that our power is in our unity, not in our uniformity,” stated Cherner.
And although the 2 tragedies fall close to the Jewish Excessive Holidays, that convergence might also present a possibility to concentrate on resilience.
“In the course of the month of Elul, to organize for Rosh Hashana, we learn from Psalm 27, and it asks, could I dwell in the home of the Lord all the times of my life, and hope within the Lord,” stated Kissileff. “I feel that the Jewish custom is one among hope and one among trying to the longer term for chance.”
