Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood

Product Description
A piercing portrait of the struggles and triumphs of one of America's renowned Jewish neighborhoods in the wake of unspeakable tragedy that highlights the hopes, fears, and tensions all Americans must confront on the road to healing.\nSquirrel 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 worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill--the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history.\nMany neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one. Mark 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.\nTogether, these stories provide a kaleidoscopic and nuanced account of collective grief, love, support, and revival. But Oppenheimer also details the difficult dialogue and messy confrontations that Squirrel Hill had to face in the process of healing, and that are a necessary part of true growth and understanding in any community. He has reverently captured the vibrancy and caring that still characterize Squirrel Hill, and it is this phenomenal resilience that can provide inspiration to any place burdened with discrimination and hate.
Review
“Propulsive . . . A poignant, deeply researched account of the Pittsburgh Jewish neighborhood in the aftermath of tragedy. Oppenheimer sets the scene with details even those familiar with the story might forget. . . . He does a lovely job of bringing the essence of this charming, walkable place to life. . . . How “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” became the site of the most deadly antisemitic attack on American soil and what happened afterward unfold with the precision of the best suspense stories. . . . Oppenheimer is sympathetic to the ways Jewish culture stands at the crossroads of proud resistance and self-protective withdrawal, bold activism and self-effacement. The people he highlights are treated with a knowing, affectionate wink, a landsman’s recognition.”
—Irina Reyn, The New York Times\n“[Oppenheimer’s] compelling exploration of [the Tree of Life synagogue shooting’s] impact on the community is by turns searing and compassionate. It is an emotionally draining terrain, flecked with occasional, unexpected pockets of consolation. But in placing this hate crime against our country’s patchwork canvas of faith, politics and violence, Oppenheimer provides a powerful meditation on the changing meaning of community and belonging in an age of disconnection and isolation.”
—Diane Cole, The Washington Post\n“[A] rare narrative about how a community tiptoes through the wake of a hate crime.”
—Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune\n“This book focuses panoramically on the tragedy and those it touched. . . . Years from now, when people want to know what happened in Pittsburgh, this is the book to which they will probably turn.”
—Jonathan Sarna, Jewish Review of Books“One of the things Oppenheimer’s book illustrates so effectively is just how far out the concentric circles of pain can ripple. . . . [
Squirrel Hill] is a welcome reminder that ‘baseless love’ can help keep a community together, as well as serve as a salve for the pain of individuals. Its lessons are not likely to prevent the next racial terror attack, but they contain some of the antibodies that could help a community to withstand an assault.”
—David B. Green, Haaretz“
Squirrel Hill . . . is a rich and important effort to write that day into history by showing us in vivid detail what the Jewish community endured and survived. . . . [Oppenheimer] brings the urgency and accuracy of superior journalism to his w