Three Jewish congregations in Pittsburgh are still waiting for justice four and a half years after the massacre that changed everything
Co-presidents of New Light Congregation, Stephen Cohen and Barbara Caplan, visit a memorial in the New Light Cemetery on Wednesday, April 19, 2023, in Shaler Township, Pa., honoring the congregants they lost during the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre over four years ago. Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday, April 24, for the suspect accused of invading the Tree of Life synagogue building on that Sabbath morning and murdering 11 worshippers from three congregations.
The tension can be felt in private conversations and encounters — the griefs, the anxieties, the feelings of being in a media fishbowl. One of those leading Passover prayers was Carol Black, who survived the attack that claimed the life of her brother, Richard Gottfried, and two other New Light members, Melvin Wax and Daniel Stein. They had led much of New Light's ritual worship.
The congregation dedicated a monument honoring its three martyrs — shaped with images of Torah scrolls and prayer shawls — at its cemetery,adorned with stained glass windows and other mementos honoring the victims. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers had been leading Tree of Life Congregation for just over a year when he survived 10/27. He carries the scarred memories of the gunshots that killed seven members: Joyce Fienberg, Rose Mallinger, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon and Irving Younger. Andrea Wedner, Mallinger's daughter, was wounded in the attack.His mission is “primarily to help my congregation community heal,” Myers said.
Dor Hadash, founded 60 years ago, is Pittsburgh's only congregation in the progressive Reconstructionist movement of Judaism. Many members are drawn to its interlocking focuses on worship, study and social activism.
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