Last week, I got up and got ready for brunch with my friends. I had pushed the snooze button on my alarm way too many times, so I nixed the idea of taking the bus and just called an uber. I went to my friend's house and had a lovely time catching up with friends. Then after my friend told me her work was on lockdown, I checked twitter to see that a shooter was at a synagogue around the corner from my house.
I live so close to Tree of Life synagogue. I pass by it nearly every single day either on my way to work or just going around walks through the neighborhood. Despite being in a city, Squirrel Hill is a quiet, almost suburban, neighborhood. There's big fancy homes to ogle, there's plenty of families with kids and dogs going about, there's a wide diversity of students that attend Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, Chatham, or any of the other universities in the area. There's a quaint movie theatre. There's tons of amazing restaurants of so many cultures and cuisines. I've lived here ever since I graduate college, and I'm so happy to be in the area.
Now around the corner from my home, there's 11 markers for the people who died on October 27, 2018. Now our neighborhood is scarred by an act of violence, an act threatening people who simply came together to worship. Now we have international attention on our neighborhood as we try to pick of the pieces of a broken heart.
I'm amazed by my community. The efforts people here have gone to in order to support the Jewish community in Pittsburgh is astounding and makes me cry. There has been so much love pouring out, and an outcry demanding that we change the culture. That we stop normalizing hate. I want our voices to drive out all those who consider violence, and that they run with their tails between their legs away from this city's vibrant love.
My neighborhood is going to carry this with us forever. We won't forget the victims: Rose Mallinger, Irving Younger, Melvin Wax, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Joyce Feinberg, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Jerry Rabinowitz, and Richard Gottfried. Their memories are in our hearts. That corner is marked forever with hatred, but I have seen so many people gather there to mourn, grieve, and pass along love.
I'm fortunate to be safe, as are my friends and family. But we're dealing with a communal tragedy. I'm struggling to cope. My depression in hopping onto these feelings and trying to force me to stay silent and hide in my bed. But I won't. I can't. Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill means too much to me. I will go out on November 6th and vote one block away from Tree of Life. I will vote for change and then I will work for it too. I will not let hatred be the new normal.
