Monday, March 25 Author Mark Oppenheimer Speaks on "Pittsburgh and Beyond: Antisemitism from the 2018 Synagogue Shooting to Today," 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Please join us for an important talk, "Pittsburgh and Beyond: Antisemitism from the 2018 Synagogue Shooting to Today," by Mark Oppenheimer, NY Times columnist, Pulitzer grantee and author of “Squirrel Hill, the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood.” Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families.
On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshiping at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill - the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one. Oppenheimer poignantly shifts the focus away from the criminal and his crime, and instead presents the historic, spirited community at the center of this heartbreak. He speaks with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians.Together, these stories provide a kaleidoscopic and nuanced account of collective grief, love, support, and revival. Mark Oppenheimer has been covering American religion for 25 years. He wrote the "Beliefs" column for The New York Times from 2010-2016, and has also written for The New Yorker, The Nation, GQ, Slate, and many more. He created Unorthodox, the world's most popular podcast about Jewish life and culture, and more recently hosted the multi-part podcast, Gatecrashers, about the history of Jews and antisemitism at Ivy League schools. He is the author of five books, including Squirrel Hill.