Hundreds fill memorial service for those killed a year ago in Tree of Life shooting

Remember.

A packed Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall wept as one as family, congregants and strangers came together to remember the 11 worshippers killed in the Tree of Life building one year ago.

Family members lit 11 tall, white candles — 11 burning reminders symbolizing their loved ones. Hundreds of people attended the memorial, lining up for hours before the service at 5 p.m.

A video remembered the victims. Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger.

“For anyone to die this way is horrible,” Andrea Wedner, daughter of Rose Mallinger, said in the video. “She didn’t deserve this. That’s what hurts the most.”

Hours earlier, people gathered and came and went at the corner of Shady and Wilkins avenues in Squirrel Hill, laying flowers and paying respects outside the synagogue that housed Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light.

For days after the Oct. 27, 2018, shooting that killed 11 of her friends and acquaintances, Arlene Wolk would walk to the synagogue where she worshipped and spent so much time.

On Sunday, one year later, she did the same.

“I’ve never had a year like this — very difficult,” she said. “It’s hard to describe in words.”

A Tree of Life member, she knew the seven killed from her congregation and was acquainted with the others from Dor Hadash and New Light.

In the past year, she’s planted 11 hydrangeas in her backyard and tends to them daily. She, like many, said she has good days and bad days.

“It’s been stages of grief and recovery and dealing with the reality of what this means,” she said. “And, of course, missing my friends, who are like family to me.”

Repair.

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha said God continues to bless him.

“It would be simple for me to have a regular diet of the news and become depressed, but I don’t,” he said. “God continues to revive my spirit.”

God, he said, kept him from being the 12th victim. His cup, he said, referring to Psalm 23, is not half-full or half-empty — it overflows.

“The love that continues to pour in from across the world reassures me that the vast majority of humanity rejects the actions of this perpetrator,” Myers said.

Speakers make remarks at a memorial service at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland, marking one year since the Tree of Life shooting on Oct. 27, 2019. pic.twitter.com/q2RqH30q1x

— Nate Smallwood (@nsmallwoodphoto) October 27, 2019

Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light called for more spotlight on those toiling away at doing good. And he called for gun control legislation, sparking a standing ovation.

“We are a wounded congregation,” said Anne-Marie Mizel Nelson of Dor Hadash.

The progressive congregation that mixes current culture with Jewish traditions was started by her parents 55 years ago. The loss of Jerry Rabinowitz, she said, still weighs in the congregation’s heart.

“We are healing, and we are on our way to being stronger than ever,” she said. “We are still committed to progressive values, still committed to our Jewish traditions.

“We are Dor Hadash,” she said, “and we are still here.”

Together.

The politicians offered no remarks, only poems and prayers.

Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald read a piece together. Gov. Tom Wolf read a piece as well.

“There is holiness when we strive to be true to the best we know,” Wolf read. “There is holiness when we are kind to someone who cannot possibly be of service to us. There is holiness when we promote family harmony.

“There is holiness,” he read, “when we forget what divides us and remember what unites us.”

Sunday morning, 13-year-old Sam Goldston stood outside the Tree of Life synagogue with a handmade sign: “We are stronger than hate. Hate doesn’t belong in Pittsburgh. Hatred can’t weaken a city of steel. Stop with the violence. It won’t bring us down.”

He said he thought about what “the big picture of today is” and put it down on paper.

“I want to show people that Pittsburgh is affected by this but we’re strong, and we’re going to move on,” he said. “Evil doesn’t help, but kindness changes the world.”