March 28, 2025 | 28 Adar 5785
Candlelighting 7:23 p.m. | Havdalah 8:23 p.m. | Vol. 68, No. 13 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
Tree of Life launches traveling exhibition ‘Lessons from the Tree of Life: Lighting the Path Forward’
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Building community while going abroad
A joint congregational trip to Israel LOCAL
$2
Five years since pandemic hit, Pittsburghers look back and ahead
Page 3
Needlepointer Barbara Trellis celebrated
A grandmother and grandson celebrate the latter's graduation during a masked window visit to the Jewish Association on Aging in June 2020.
Photo courtesy of Jewish Association on Aging
Exhibit opens at Rodef Shalom
Page 4
LOCAL
By David Rullo | Senior Staff Writer
C
Anti-Israel group suspended
Pitt disciplines SJP
Page 5
LOCAL Home Improvement
Special section
From left: Amy Mallinger, Maggie Feinstein, Eric Lidji, Carole Zawatsky and Michael Bernstein discuss The Tree of Life’s new exhibit “Lessons from The Tree of Life: Lighting the Path Forward.” Photo by David Rullo
Page 8
arole Zawatsky recalled the words America’s first president, George Washington, wrote to the Jewish community at Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island: “Let bigotry know no sanction.” “What have we done with that promise?” she asked. “Have we delivered on that? How can we become a nation who works to eliminate antisemitism and identity-based hate in all forms?” Zawatsky is the chief executive officer of The Tree of Life, the organization created after the most violent antisemitic attack in American history. She hopes “Lessons from The Tree of Life: Lighting the Path Forward” will begin to answer those questions. The new traveling exhibition opens at The University Club Library at the University of Pittsburgh on March 27. It offers glimpses into the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and its impact on the three congregations attacked — Dor Hadash, New Light Congregation and Tree of Life — as well as the community at large.
It also points to the future. “The first chapter looks at what happened on 10/27 and how this community responded so beautifully with an embrace of love,” Zawatsky said at a press event on March 21. Told through four double screens, the first chapter pays homage to the victims of the shooting and tells the story of the attack; the remaining screens offer a glimpse into the future of the organization and site, and a look at antisemitism in America. One screen offers a peek at a new design for the building to be constructed on the site of the attack, created by renowned architect Daniel Libeskind. The new design is markedly different from the one presented more than a year ago. The plan now is for the building to occupy a smaller footprint and to rise just one story, not two. The exhibit also provides a first look and information about the memorial, which will flank the main façade of the building on Shady and Wilkins avenues. In the center of the exhibition are several items from the Rauh Jewish History Program Please see Tree of Life, page 18
By Adam Reinherz | Senior Staff Writer
I
n the five years since initially masking, podding and sheltering in place, Pittsburghers evolved. New appreciation emerged for simple gatherings, face-to-face interactions, even synagogue attendance. For several community members, peering back at 2020 reveals bright spots; for others, however, revisiting the pandemic prompts lessons learned and lingering realities. The degree to which COVID-19 is part of one’s story depends upon its level of interference, Squirrel Hill resident Tammy Hepps said. (Hepps is a Chronicle board member.) “Obviously it was disruptive in all of our lives, but I think it was quite different and a very different challenge for people with kids, let alone people with very little kids,” she said. “Personally, I wasn’t going into an office before COVID. I lost my job at the beginning of COVID, and that created, for a time, a lot of stress beyond just ‘What is happening to the world.’”
Where should we go?
Like other interviewees for this story, Hepps was asked about comments she made to the Chronicle five years earlier. In Please see Pandemic, page 18
CHINA BEFORE COMMUNISM
Just W hat You’ve Been Waiting For
APR 26–27 • BENEDUM CENTER
ShenYun.com 844-888-7469