Tree of Life and Calvary Church celebrate faith, festivals and friendship

In what has become an interfaith tradition, members of Tree of Life Congregation will take part in a Christmas pageant at Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside on the seventh day of Chanukah, Dec. 21.

The event, which is open to the public, will be followed by a Festival of Lights reception with latkes, sufganyot (jelly donuts), gelt, dreidels, and songs led by Rabbi Jeffrey Myers on guitar.

Myers, in the role of Moses, will narrate the Nativity, and Tree of Life members, including congregation president Alan Hausman, will play the Three Wise Men.

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“It’s a funny twist,” said Hausman. “We’re playing the only non-Jews in the story, and members of Calvary will be playing Jews.”

It is a celebration of the season and of a partnership that began after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, when the Rev. Jonathon Jensen offered Tree of Life space at Calvary for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services.

“We were looking for what to do with services and went to the usual suspects — the Carnegie, and Soldiers and Sailors — which, for one reason or another, could not accommodate us all three days,” Hausman said.

In calling around to churches, he connected with Jensen, not realizing the reverend was one of the “gazillion” people who had reached out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting to offer support.

“He welcomed us to hold services there and wouldn’t accept a penny in rent,” Hausman said, noting that Jensen also authorized security upgrades to Calvary at the church’s expense.

Hausman remembers feeling a bit lost during their initial meeting when he asked Jensen the proper way to address him, and how quickly he was put at ease. “He told me, my name is Jonathon,” Hausman recalled.

When Tree of Life’s High Holiday services first were held at the church, in 2019, more than 20 members of Calvary served as greeters and ushers.

“Roughly 800 people came for Rosh Hashanah that year and I was completely overwhelmed by their outpouring of gratitude … by their emotions and relief at having a place to worship,” said Jensen, who was particularly moved when a couple of Tree of Life congregants called him a mensch. “I was never so touched as I was that day by their deep and meaningful offer of thanksgiving.”

Tree of Life has observed the High Holidays at Calvary ever since and will continue there until its new shul is completed in Squirrel Hill. Construction is slated to begin next year.

Being able to aid Tree of Life in a time of need aligns with Calvary’s mission, Jensen said.

“Rather than say, ‘Let us know if there’s anything we can do,’ I wanted to offer specific help. At Calvary we are good at sharing space. I emailed Rabbi Myers after the shooting that ‘I can’t imagine what you are going through, but if you need space, we can seat 1,000.’”

“I told him our home is your home.”

As their friendship grew, Jensen eventually invited Myers to be in Calvary’s Christmas pageant.

“Rabbi Meyers writes this wonderful campy Purim spiel every year,” Jensen said. “He told me Calvary looks like Hogwarts in Harry Potter, so he asked, ‘Would I be a wizard?’ And I said ‘Sure.’ We did it once at Calvary and once at Rodef [Shalom Congregation].”

“I told him that we do our own campy play — the Christmas pageant — and asked if he’d like to be in that,” Jensen recalled. “I said, ‘How about I write you in as Moses?’ and he said ‘Great, I have my own kit,’ which included a giant Styrofoam Ten Commandments.”

Since then, there have been other collaborations. Jensen has participated in Torah Studio studies with Tree of Life at Rodef Shalom, including one this past Dec. 6. In a lighter vein, Calvary hosts weekly mahjong games and joins in Jewish heritage nights at Pirates and Penguins games.

“Friendships have developed,” Jensen said. “And we’ve learned so much from one another.”

This year, Tree of Life donated $36,000 to Calvary’s $6 million capital campaign, which is designed to “preserve, sustain, and share” its historic buildings and ministries.

Calvary hosts Rabbi Aaron Bisno of Temple Ohav Shalom as its first rabbi in residence within its Center for Interfaith Collaboration. Bisno and Jensen lead a class on Sunday mornings — “A Priest and a Rabbi Walk into a Classroom” — which has explored the parables of Jesus and the books of Genesis and Exodus.

“This isn’t about converting people to other faiths,” Jensen said. “It’s about converting people more deeply to their own faith.”

Hausman sees the bond between congregations as the silver lining to a tragedy.

“It was an awful, awful way to go into a friendship, but hopefully these things will help teach the world that acceptance is what we need to learn,” he said.

“We use different prayers and have different rituals but when you drill down, at our core we share the same beliefs — in being good to other people and to ourselves.”

The Dec. 21 pageant begins at 11 a.m. Unlike in past years, live animals will not be part of the pageant, however, there will be a nativity petting zoo outside the church from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. PJC

Deborah Weisberg is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.