Day school students from Pittsburgh and Cleveland embrace lessons of Oct. 27
Remembrance is important, educators say, but students also need to know the 'world is made up of more goodness than evil'
Hours before adults commemorated the events of Oct. 27, 2018, at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill, seventh and eighth graders from Jewish day schools in Pittsburgh and Cleveland gathered to honor the 11 people who were murdered in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. The Monday morning program welcomed more than 70 participants from Pittsburgh’s Community Day School and Cleveland’s Joseph and Florence Mandel Jewish Day School.
Standing outside the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, young learners heard from Alan Hausman, Tree of Life Congregation’s president, about past atrocities and necessary steps toward a better future.
Refusing to mention the shooter’s name, Hausman recalled the events of Oct. 27, 2018, describing how a gunman entered the Tree of Life building and murdered 11 Jews from Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash congregations.
The pain, Hausman said, of losing beloved congregants will never be forgotten, but the “real story of how we survived, and how everyone got through this,” is told in two words: “stronger together.”
Hausman credited faith leaders across Pittsburgh with lending physical space and emotional support in the aftermath of the shooting.
“It’s a long road to recovery. There is no magic switch. There is no magic saying. It’s just day by day,” Hausman said.
With sun shining down on the adolescents, Andrea Wedner read the names of the 11 people — Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Dan Stein, Irving Younger and Melvin Wax — who were killed seven years prior.
Wedner, a survivor of the attack who also lost her mother, Rose Mallinger, in the shooting, paused after each name for students to light a memorial candle.
Jay Leberman, Mandel’s head of school, recited Kaddish, a 13th-century Aramaic prayer that ends with a request for absolute peace.
Invoking that divine appeal, students from both Jewish schools sang the text’s concluding words.
Most of the participating students were 12 or 13 years old, and likely have no memory of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Still, it’s essential to travel, recall and make new memories, Leberman told the Chronicle.
“It’s critically important that our students — especially coming from Cleveland — understand that this is something that we’ll never forget and we can’t forget,” he said.
Crediting Hausman with mentioning those who helped Jewish Pittsburghers in the aftermath of the attack, Leberman said students need to know the “world is made up of more goodness than evil.”
The program, which was part of a daylong visit between students, was about “transforming memory into connection and purpose,” Casey Weiss, CDS’ head of school, told the Chronicle.
Following the morning commemoration, students traveled by bus to the JCC’s Henry Kaufmann Family Park in Monroeville for hours of activities, including a scavenger hunt, zip lining and discussion.
The goal, Weiss said, was for adolescents to gain an appreciation of the wider Jewish world. Students should “see themselves as part of something bigger,” she said. “By connecting with peers from another city, our students experience, firsthand, that Jewish life spreads beyond just their circle of peers or local Jewish connections.”
Ron Wedner, who joined his wife, Andrea Wedner, at the morning commemoration told the Chronicle that young people — especially — must understand the lessons of Oct. 27.
As a lead-up to the communitywide commemoration at the JCC, and as an outgrowth of the Eradicate Hate Global Summit, Ron Wedner spent months working with high school students in several districts, including Mt. Lebanon, North Hills, Northgate, South Allegheny and South Fayette.
Those students — most of whom are not Jewish — designed panels and boards demonstrating the “initiatives they’ve taken, and the programs they put together, in their schools that draw students and help fight bullying, bigotry and racism.”
Engaging young people of all backgrounds is vital for collective growth and improvement, Wedner continued.
“These kids are just trying to promote kindness, tolerance and acceptance,” he said. “That’s important to us.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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