SQUIRREL HILL

How did “the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history” change a Pittsburgh neighborhood and its residents? A gifted journalist sought answers.

In the 1840s, Oppenheimer’s ancestors settled in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh, “a little Jewish Eden” that would become “the oldest, the most stable, most internally diverse Jewish neighborhood” in the U.S. and the place his father grew up. So the author wondered how it would respond after a White nationalist killed 11 Sabbath-observers in a synagogue that housed two Conservative congregations, Tree of Life and New Light, and the Reconstructionist Dor Hadash, on Oct. 27, 2018: “When the cameras and the police tape were gone, what stayed behind?” In this sensitive and beautifully written account of how Squirrel Hill changed in the year after the attack, Oppenheimer takes an approach rarely seen in books about mass shootings, which tend to focus on the killer or victims. He instead surveys others touched by the tragedy. Many are Jews, including a rabbi leading his first post-attack High Holy Days services and Orthodox volunteer “shomrim,” or “guards of the dead,” who stayed with the bodies until the medical examiner removed them. Other subjects come from different faith traditions—e.g., an Iranian student who set up a GoFundMe account, a Catholic artist who created a window display for Starbucks, the “trauma tourists” who unhelpfully left “condolence cards that promised that the victims had already met Jesus in Heaven.” In this wonderfully rendered narrative, Oppenheimer deftly shows how, when emotions are raw, the best intentions can misfire or fail to satisfy everyone: When civic leaders tried to keep attack-related events apolitical, some residents felt more benefit would have come from the kind of activism shown by students after the Parkland shootings. While the Tree of Life massacre targeted Jews, this book abounds with insights for cities facing the aftermath of any mass-casualty event.

A stunning book that offers an eloquent portrait of an antisemitic attack and its effect on a neighborhood.