The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting: Reflections from Scholars and Writers on Life before and after America's Deadliest Antisemitic Attack
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On October 27, 2018, during a Shabbat service, a gunman shot and killed eleven people in the Tree of Life Synagogue-Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh, including Penn alumnus Jerry Rabinowitz. As the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, the shooting has had societal consequences, but for members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, the impact is deeply personal as well—and is still unfolding.
As a way to commemorate the loss, and to help digest the event's implications, please join us for an online program featuring contributors to the newly published Bound in the Bond of Life, a collection of essays from scholars, journalists, religious leaders, activists, and community members attempting to come to terms with what happened.
Featuring
Beth Kissileff
Beth Kissileff has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Minnesota, Carleton College, Smith College, and Mount Holyoke College. She is the spouse of Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Congregation, who survived the October 27th attack by hiding himself and others.
Kissileff received her PhD in comparative literature from the University of Pennsylvania. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Tablet, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Religion News Service, among others. She has received fellowships from the Corporation of Yaddo, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Collegeville Institute.
Barbara Stern Burstin
Barbara Stern Burstin is a historian who has researched both the Holocaust and the Jewish community of Pittsburgh.
Laurie Eisenberg
Laurie Zittrain Eisenberg is a Teaching Professor in the History Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Her areas of research include the Arab-Israeli conflict and peace process, Israeli foreign policy; American foreign policy in the Middle East; the interplay of religion and politics in the Middle East; and the interactions of multiple Middle East countries and non-state actors.
Eisenberg received her PhD in modern Middle East history from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is the author of My Enemy's Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900–1948 (Wayne State University Press, 1994) and Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, Possibilities (with Neil Caplan, Indiana University Press, 2010).
Adam Shear
Adam Shear is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches courses on medieval and modern Jewish history; relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims; and historical studies of religious diversity. His research focuses on early modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history.
Shear received his PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently writing a book on the ways that early printers and publishers adapted, presented, and packaged medieval Hebrew texts using the new medium of print.
Cosponsors
Cosponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, the Jewish Studies Program at the Dietrich School of the University of Pittsburgh, and the Jack Buncher Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies in the Department of History at Carnegie Mellon University.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Klatt Family and the Harry Stern Family Foundation.
