In Squirrel Hill, people gather to remember Tree of Life victims 4 years later
PITTSBURGH — A solemn quiet fell over the corner of Shady and Wilkins avenues in Squirrel Hill on Thursday, four years since an antisemitic gunman opened fire on Saturday services at the Tree of Life synagogue.
“People are feeling it,” said Maggie Feinstein, director of the 10.27 Healing Project. “It's surprising how much we all feel it in our bodies.”
The massacre — the worst attack on Jewish people in the United States — killed 11 worshippers from the congregations of Tree of Life Or L'Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Malinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
Cyril Lukas forged a friendship with Younger at the gym at the Jewish Community Center, where they both worked out most mornings.
“He was just a nice person — a nice person to talk to,” said Lukas.
Lukas said he felt compelled to come to the synagogue Thursday on the four year mark to honor and remember his friend, with whom he often talked sports, food and the mundane.
After Younger was killed, Lukas had to stop going to the gym for a while.
“I missed him. You get used to someone,” he said. “They become part of your routine.”
Two other congregants were injured: Daniel Leger and Andrea Wedner. Four Pittsburgh police officers sustained gunfire-related injuries. Dan Mead and Michael Smidga were among the first officers on the scene, encountering the shooter, Robert Bowers, at the synagogue entrance. Officer Smidga was hit by shrapnel, and Officer Mead was shot in the hand.
Inside the synagogue, two SWAT officers were injured in a gunbattle with Bowers. Anthony Burke was struck in the hand, and Timothy Matson was shot multiple times. Officer Matson did not return to duty for two years.
Tzippy and Rich Mazer walk past the synagogue often. They live in the neighborhood and go for daily walks.
“It's fresh in our minds,” Mazer said as the pair walked on Wilkins Avenue, past the screen-printed banners displaying art submitted by kids across the country in the aftermath of the shooting.
Mazer was an administrator at the Community Day School at the time, and she said many of the congregants worked among the students on various projects.
“It feels like yesterday,” she said.
Across the city and country, words poured in from leaders marking the tragedy.
“Today we commemorate the 11 lives taken from us at the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue and recommit ourselves to the hard work of ending violence, discrimination and antisemitism every single day,” Mayor Ed Gainey said in a statement. “We as Pittsburghers are welcoming, loving and accepting of all people — that will never change.”
President Joe Biden, in a statement, recalled how the “quiet Shabbat morning was shattered by gunfire and hate.”
“In the four years since that terrible day, the people of Pittsburgh have shown us what it means to be stronger than hate,” Biden said. “The courage and character of the Pittsburgh community remains an inspiration to us all.”
