June 2, 2023 | 13 Sivan 5783
Candlelighting 8:27 p.m. | Havdalah 9:35 p.m. | Vol. 66, No. 22 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Lenda volorei ciendi non re nus A listening tour of competing narratives
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‘We will seek justice’: Testimony Federation’s begins in the Pittsburgh CEO recalls synagogue massacre trial Oct. 27, 2018
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Page 3 Jeff Finkelstein
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Photo courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
By David Rullo | Staff Writer
J gunshots, followed by her dying breaths. She was 84. Her husband was 86. That call marked the first day of testimony in the federal death penalty trial of Robert Bowers. He is accused of gunning down 11 worshippers because of a hatred of Jews. It’s the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history. In her opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Soo Song recounted the systematic slaughter that morning and then made a simple declaration. “We will seek justice,” she told the jury, “in the names of the deceased victims.” She named each: the Simons; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; David Rosenthal, 54, and his brother, Cecil, 59; Dan Stein, 71; Joyce Fienberg, 75; Irving Younger, 69; Melvin Wax, 87; Richard Gottfried, 65; and Rose Mallinger, 97. The accused killer, a truck driver from Baldwin, is charged with gunning them down while they gathered for Shabbat services. He is also accused of wounding other congregants and several Pittsburgh police officers in two gunfights.
eff Finkelstein was disoriented by more than jet lag the morning of Oct. 27. Finkelstein, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, returned to Pittsburgh from Israel the previous evening, in time to celebrate Shabbat with his wife. “It was a normal night after a long trip,” Finkelstein recalled. “The next morning, I had decided I was going to sleep in, which I don’t do because I get really jet-lagged. I was up the next day and got a call around 10 a.m.” The call was from the Federation’s then-board chair, Meryl Ainsman, telling him there was a shooting at the Tree of Life building. “I had to figure out what to do,” Finkelstein said. “Do I go there? Do I stay at home? Do I trust the news? I mean, who knows?” He decided to head to the building. When he reached barriers set up by the police several blocks away, he realized that he had to quickly learn the details of what was happening and determine the needs of the community. Finkelstein wasn’t the only community leader who had heard the news and traveled to the site of the danger. Gov. Tom Wolf, Mayor Bill Peduto, state Rep. Dan Frankel and Pittsburgh City Council member Corey O’Connor were all outside the building when he arrived. “I have a couple of pictures on my cell phone of police running down the street in full tactical gear, running to storm the building,” Finkelstein
Please see Trial, page 12
Please see Finkelstein, page 12
A memorial outside the Tree of Life building after the Oct. 27, 2018, attack
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Where to turn for support during the Lenda nus dolorum re pro mi, cuptati synagogue shooting trial ntibus.
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Photo by Toby Tabachnick
By Torsten Ove | Contributing Writer
T
he sound of booming gunshots and screams echoed through a federal courtroom on Tuesday as the government played a 911 call from the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre on Oct. 27, 2018. Bernice Simon had called on her cell phone to report a shooter loose in the Tree of Life synagogue building. “We’re at Tree of Life, we’re being attacked,” she said to the dispatcher. Her husband, Sylvan, had been hit as the couple sat in the chapel. They had been married in the synagogue some 60 years earlier. “He’s shot in the back,” she said in an out-of-breath voice. The dispatcher told her to stay down and put her shawl on Sylvan’s wound to stop the bleeding. On a second call, loud shots can be heard in the background as the shooter continued his rampage through the building. “I’m scared to death,” Bernice said. Her husband wasn’t breathing, she said. She said he might be dead. Moments later, the jury heard her own screams amid deafening
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