Crews will break ground at the site of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on Sunday in a ceremony that will include remarks by survivors, Tree of Life board members and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Mr. Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, has been among the most outspoken of the Biden administration in terms of antisemitism. The White House announced that he would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Tree of Life site.
Much of the building that once stood at the corner of Shady and Wilkins avenues has been demolished, a task that began in earnest in January, about five months after the condemned shooter’s trial concluded.
The synagogue that once sat at the site housed three congregations: Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light. Eleven were killed in the Oct. 27, 2018, attack: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil and David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
The shooting remains the deadliest antisemitic attack in the U.S.
For more than five years, the hulking stone building sat empty, its only visitors FBI agents and some family members and survivors.
Some 80% of the building has been demolished, while the rest will become part of a campus that will house a memorial, sanctuary, education center, and museum dedicated to the history and study of antisemitism.
Other speakers set for Sunday are Gov. Josh Shapiro and several Tree of Life executives, including CEO Carole Zawatsky and Michael Bernstein, chair of the Tree of Life board. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who survived the 2018 attack, will also speak, as well as Audrey Glickman, another survivor, and Diane Rosenthal, whose brothers Cecil and David were killed in the shooting.
The design for the memorial portion of the site was unveiled in December. Its design is by architect Daniel Libeskind, who is also designing the renewed synagogue space. He has said the process was a painstaking one done in conjunction with the survivors and the nine families of those killed.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Mr. Libeskind’s portfolio includes the design of the 9/11 memorial in New York, Berlin’s Jewish Museum, and the Dutch Holocaust Memorial of names in Amsterdam.
The renderings released at the time show a stone path cut across the greenery on the Shady Avenue side of the building. Eleven sculptures of open books will line the walkway and garden — one for each of the 11 killed.
The sculptures will be inscribed with stories of how each person lived. The books represent the Jewish idea of the Book of Life: Between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur — the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement — those who are leading good lives and destined for heaven are written into the Book of Life.
Federal funding has been earmarked to help develop the site and the new educational programming it will include. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., announced late last month that $1 million will go toward funding staff, technology and classrooms.
"This is a broad-bases educational program,” Mr. Casey said at the time, “and I think it forms the foundation of our efforts to combat antisemitism. We have to go directly at the question: What happens to the next generation?"
The Associated Press contributed to this report/
First Published: June 17, 2024, 2:06 p.m.
Updated: June 18, 2024, 6:37 p.m.
