Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy(Regional)

On October 27, 2018, three congregations were holding their morning Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood when a lone gunman entered the building and opened fire. He killed eleven people and injured six more in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history. The story made international headlines for weeks following the shooting, but Pittsburgh and the local Jewish community could not simply move on when the news cycle did. The essays in this anthology, written by local journalists, academics, spiritual leaders, and other community members, reveal a city’s attempts to come to terms with an unfathomable horror. Here, members from each of the three impacted congregations are able to reflect on their experiences in a raw, profound way. Local journalists who covered the story as it unfolded explore the personal and public aspects of reporting the news. Activists consider their work at a calm distance from the chaotic intensity of their daily efforts. Academics mesh their professional expertise with their personal experiences of this shattering event in their hometown. A local rabbi shares his process for crafting messages of comfort even as he attempts to reckon with his own feelings. Bringing these local voices together into a chorus raises them over the din of international chroniclers who offer important contributions but cannot feel the intensity of this tragedy in the same way as Pittsburghers. The essays in this anthology tell a collective story of city shaken to its very core, but determined that love will ultimately win. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Jewish Family and Community Service of Pittsburgh (https://www.jfcspgh.org/), which serves individuals and families of all faiths throughout the Greater Pittsburgh community.

About the Author :
Beth Kissileff (Editor) Beth Kissileff is the author of the novel Questioning Return and editor of the essay collections Reading Genesis: Beginnings and Reading Exodus: Journeys. She has taught at the universities of Pittsburgh and Minnesota and Carleton, Smith, and Mount Holyoke colleges. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, Tablet, and Religion News Service, among others. She is the spouse of Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Congregation, who survived the October 27 attack by hiding himself and others. Eric Lidji (Editor) Eric Lidji is the director of the Rauh Jewish History Program & Archives at the Senator John Heinz History Center. He is the author of John Riegert and The Seventeenth Generation: The Lifework of Rabbi Walter Jacob and a co-editor of Her Deeds Sing Her Praises: Profiles of Pittsburgh Jewish Women. He writes extensively about the Jewish history of Western Pennsylvania and hosts the local Jewish history podcast The Cornerstone. He has been overseeing the effort to preserve documentation of the October 27 attack.

Review :
This remarkable collection is a powerful testament to how individuals and communities cope with an act of unbelievable violence. Raw and profound. The voices that animate this collection are varied and stunning. Bound in the Bond of Life is a document to be read and contemplated, not summarized—a close-to-the-event memorial that expresses grief, the search for understanding and the effort to find a way forward. Bound in the Bond of Life does more than humanize a historic event: it gives us the rare opportunity to see what happens ‘after the vigil,’ in the apt words of contributor Molly Pascal. The impact of the attack that claimed 11 lives . . . was also extraordinarily local. It happened in Squirrel Hill, a neighborhood most Pittsburghers know well, and many area residents have only a degree or two of separation from that day’s violence. Bound in the Bond of Life reckons with that legacy. Gathering accounts from local journalists, academics, rabbis and community members, Eric Lidji and Beth Kissileff reveal efforts to make sense of the shooting, from raw, first-person descriptions to pieces by those who translated the horror into activism. Bound in the Bond of Life, with its many viewpoints, illustrates the resilience of the Pittsburgh and American Jewish communities. Despite the challenges in reading a book like this, I couldn’t put it down. The writing itself is phenomenal, and the grief is meant to be shared. Bound in the Bond of Life challenges the many dry, usually emotionless, and very monotone media and encyclopedic descriptions of what has become known as the ‘Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting’. . . . Although each essay conveys authentic emotions and even practical advice, the combined strength of the contributors’ words is to be found in their linked context.