Ep. 66 - Beliefs Made Visible

The murder of eleven Jews at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue three years ago in October 2018 was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. On this episode, journalist Mark Oppenheimer, author of the new book Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and The Soul of a Neighborhood, joins Commonweal editor Dominic Preziosi for a wide-ranging discussion of the aftermath of that event. Oppenheimer focuses not on the shooting and the gunman, but rather on the century-old currents of Judaism in Pittsburgh, the variety of religious beliefs and practices visible after the attack, and the resilience of Squirrel Hill. For further reading: - ‘Death at the Tree of Life,’ Wesley Hill - ‘From Trotsky to Soros,’ James J. Sheehan - ‘The Author and the Expert,’ Tzvi Novick