Clergy, local authorities and members of Butler County’s Jewish community expressed the need for continued community engagement and dialogue in the aftermath of the trial of the gunman who murdered 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s historic Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill in October 2018.

Robert Bowers, 50, was formally sentenced Thursday, Aug. 3, a day after the jury returned a death sentence. On Thursday, U.S. Judge Robert Colville pronounced the sentence.

The shooting is the deadliest antisemitic attack in the history of the United States.

“The United States court system came through and saw the trial to its end,” said Rabbi Yossi Feller of the Chabad Jewish Center of Cranberry. “We hope now that it has concluded that the families can find some healing and comfort.”

As he spoke about how his congregation and the rest of the country are moving forward in the wake of the trial, Feller mentioned Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, a revered 20th Century Orthodox Jewish spiritual leader and teacher of the Chabad Jewish tradition.

“The Rebbe would quote King Solomon Ecclesiastes, which states, ‘And the living should take it to heart,’” said Feller. “People have been focusing on the murderer; we need to learn from the murdered whose lives were brutally cut short … they were murdered while praying to God and connecting with God.”

Last year, families of the victims wrote a letter to the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle in support of the death penalty for the convicted killer:

“We are not a ruthless, uncompassionate people; we, as a persecuted people, understand when there is a time for compassion and when there is a time to stand up and say enough is enough — such violent hatred will not be tolerated on this earth. Our beloved 11 were taken from us in a brutal, coldblooded act of hatred and violence. We, the undersigned, will feel further violated by letting the defendant have the easy way out. His crimes deserve the death penalty,” it read.

Joel Benson, senior pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, said his congregation gathered in solidarity with Congregation B'nai Abraham, the synagogue on North Main Street, through the trial.

“We have stood for our Jewish brothers and sisters whenever we can to say this is wrong, this is not a part of the Christian faith … to hate anyone,” Benson said. “It’s not a part of church or Christian tradition that we are called to follow.”

Benson said that while his faith does not espouse capital punishment, he and his congregation have prayed for the jury since the beginning of the trial.

“We prayed for them every week,” Benson said. “We prayed for healing … they see a lot of stuff that outside of the courtroom we don’t see … I’m sure they saw a lot of stuff, and we prayed for them to have some peace after this was over.”

David Hicks, Anglican bishop, rector of St. Peter’s Anglican Church, and co-chair of the Butler Clergy Anti-Racist Focus Group, called the jury verdict sad, but just.

“(Bowers’) death doesn’t bring about a return of the people lost, but it also demonstrates our society will not tolerate that hatred and actions that stem from that (hatred),” he said.

Hicks said his faith does not support retaliation, but that he understands civil government has a responsibility to remove dangers to society.

“To do less cheapens life,” Hicks said. “If someone can take so many lives with no strong consequence … we’ve really said the lives taken didn’t have so much value.”

According to experts, the Tree of Life shooting was not an isolated incident, but that it demonstrated the violent extent of white supremacist ideology and antisemitic rhetoric. Antisemitic attacks rose significantly in the last several years, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting a 36% increase in cases including assaults and vandalism in its 2022 annual audit.

There were 3,697 antisemitic incidents reported by the ADL in 2022, which marked the “third time in the past five years that the year-end total has been the highest number ever recorded,” the organization said.

Simply not being racist is not enough to combat anti-Jewish hate, some faith leaders say.

The current configuration of the Butler Clergy Network came about in reaction to the Tree of Life shooting in Squirrel Hill. Its subcommittee, the Butler Clergy Anti-Racist Focus Group, emerged after the murder of George Floyd.

The explicit use of the word “anti-racist” chosen by group says more than simply “we don’t support racism,” Hicks said. To Hicks, being pacifist is not the same as being passive.

“The idea of being anti-racist is, ‘I’m going to take positive steps that position racism as wrong; I’m going to take steps to encourage and foster harmony,” said Hicks.

Michal Gray-Schaffer, cantor and spiritual leader of Congregation B'nai Abraham, and member of the Butler Clergy Network, said clergy should speak up and promote anti-racism because people look to them for moral, ethical and spiritual guidance.

“Human beings are made in the likeness and image of God,” Butler Clergy network chair and pastor of First English Lutheran Church Kimberly Van Driel said. “We only see that image in the great diversity of people God has made. Whenever that image is dishonored through hatred, through systemic injustice, through policies that dehumanize or degrade, in order to have credible witness to what we believe, we must stand up.”

When Gray-Schaffer informed clergy members in the organization about the national uptick in antisemitism, she said they had no idea. In response, pastors within the Butler Clergy Network showed their support by attending Shabbat services at Congregation B'nai Abraham. She said Benson, senior pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, brought over 40 congregants one evening.

“We had a meeting of solidarity and of mourning for the victims, and that evening was so well attended, there were people on every square inch of our building and courtyard, with faces pressed against the glass,” said Gray-Schaffer. “We felt so much support from the Butler community.”

Benson said people of faith can support Butler’s Jewish community and victims of hate crimes by speaking out and condemning hate speech.

“It has no place in our society,” Benson said.

This past February, Gray-Schaffer said the group and dozens more gathered together in Diamond Park to bring awareness to antisemitism and stand in solidarity.

County commissioner Leslie Osche, who attends Trinity Lutheran Church, said she was among those who attended some of the gatherings at Congregation B'nai Abraham.

“I grew up here, in this community with a synagogue in the community, with many, many Jewish friends,” Osche said. “They have always been a part of this community, a part of the family of this community.”

She said that hate speech is a symptom of something worse, and that addressing acts of hate, including antisemitism, takes engagement.

For the congregants of the Chabad Jewish Center in Cranberry Township, following the Tree of Life trial was difficult, Rabbi Feller said.

“It is a painful thing to have to revisit,” Feller said. “This horrible day, this horrible event, it happened on that day, but we are working to make the world a better place. Every action that we do (is so that) such a thing never happens again. We’re all created in God’s image and when we think about that, when we recognize that every person is created in God’s image, we will respect one another despite external differences.”

“The people who were murdered are no longer here with us,” Feller said. “We have to learn from them how we can better the world.”