Five years ago today, on October 27, 2018, eleven congregants were killed by a gunman at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, it seems worthy of looking back on this earlier tragedy. Words fail to express the horror of both events, and no one can undo the inhumanity of each.
The Pittsburgh gunman, who does not deserve to be named, was finally convicted and sentenced to death just this past August. Who knows how long the effects of the Hamas attack may go on.
I wrote a poem the day after the Pittsburgh attack centered around the Bar Mitzvah of a friend’s child that I attended there next day. All the details of the attack were still being gathered and a fact or two of mine turned out to be off, but the sentiment still weighs on me, particularly as the Middle East deals with the aftermath of this October 7.
