Something Was Wrong - S6 Ep5: Massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue | JE

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

*Content warning: gun violence, mass shootings, hate crime, antisemitism, violence, religious abuse, bigotry, distressing themes, death.  Follow JE Reich on Twitter and Instagram  Tree of Life Synagogue  Inside the Tree of Life Congregation, the Prayer for the Dead Brings Hope by J.E. Reich  For more info about SWW and to access free mental health resources, please visit SomethingWasWrong.com Support SWW on Patreon for as little as $1 a month Follow Tiffany Reese on Instagram  Music from Glad Rags album Wonder Under  Thank you so much to Crime Junkie for featuring SWW’s Episode Predator (S6 E2) on their episode BWBRSA: Operation Fireball!  Check out Jez' new podcast: Let’s Get Back To Questionable, Inappropriate Advice + More

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This past Friday, December 4th, 2020, Ashley and Britt from Crime Junkie podcast, featured Jess's story from this season on their episode BWBR SA, aka Be Weird, Be Weird, Be Rude, Stay Alive, Operation Fireball. Jez and I so appreciate them highlighting this story, and we all hope it brings awareness and accountability. I also want to thank Ashley and Britt for just being awesome and being listeners and supporters of something was wrong since season one. They've always gone out of their way to encourage me and support my work, and I really appreciate it. it. By covering this important story and then by recommending my podcast, they have not only brought me

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Thank you so much. On Saturday, October 27th, 2018, armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and at least three handguns, a man shouting anti-Semitic slurs opened fire inside the Pittsburgh synagogue, Tree of Life. Eleven members of the Tree of Life community were murdered. four police officers and two others were also injured. The next survivor I'm honored to interview, J.E., is a member of the Tree of Life community and was personally impacted in many ways by this massacre. The story is not only about them horrifically losing 11 people that they loved, but about

their personal trauma that followed after being doxed, terrorized, and harassed by white nationalists. I'm Tiffany Reese, and this is, something was wrong. My name is, J.E.R.K.E. Rike. I'm 32 years old. I'm currently live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. which is also where for the most part I grew up. I'm also queer and trans, specifically non-binary. So my pronouns are they and them. So I come from a Jewish family.

My dad is from London, England. He grew up there because his parents were Holocaust refugees. So they were both from Vienna, Austria, and moved to the UK during the war. My mom is from Miami. Emmy, Florida, which is where she now lives again. Yeah, they moved there because my dad is an academic and he got a job at the University of Pittsburgh. So that's how we all ended up here. I'm the oldest of five, technically. I have two stepbrothers and two younger sisters. My parents split around when I was

11 or so. So like in terms of my connection to tree of life, it actually has to do a lot with their split. For the most part, when I was a child, I went to another synagogue in Pittsburgh called Beshalum, which is located in Squirrel Hill. It's also a very close to where Tree of Life is pretty much like a 15-minute walk. When my mom started dating again after my parents split, she met the men who would become my stepfather, Joel, who served as the executive director at Tree of Life for, I think maybe slightly over two decades. So when they started becoming more serious and when they got married eventually, we started mostly going to Tree of Life.

So I spent like my tween years up until the time I was 18 as a member of that congregation. My younger siblings obviously spent more of their childhood there and my stepfather spent their entire lives there. I left Pittsburgh at 18 to go to college in Boston. Right after that, I went immediately to grad school in New York City. So I lived in New York for eight years, Boston for four, and I moved back at the beginning of 2018, just because I was at a really low point in my life,

I was having a ton of health problems and some issues with depression. I had been unemployed for a few months. my last staff writing job had ended. So I sort of moved back to Pittsburgh to take a break, take care of my health, and get a fresh start. I definitely didn't think I'd still be in Pittsburgh. But yeah, I live here happily now with my girlfriend Zoe and our five cats and one dog. The thing is when it comes to, I guess, like being a member of Tree of Life, it kind of extends to like being a member of a member of of any synagogue or like any sort of like worshiping community within Jewish culture. In those kinds of places in those buildings, in those halls, it's more than a place of worship.

Bachelom and also Tree of Life for my younger sisters was like where we went to preschool. It's where we would congregate for like a Jewish youth group or have like lock-ins at the synagogue with like members of our Hebrew school class. It was where we would learn how to like make a hamintoshin for porum. Or, you know, on Friday nights, we would go to services and then have a big communal meal and where we would dance, where we had our first kisses, where we, in the chapels, like where we sought atonement for our sins on Yom Kippur, or when we would yell mazzletop after a glass was broken after a wedding.

A synagogue is a lot more than a synagogue. It's a safe space, but it's also a place of hope, a place of memory, a place where you can connect to your roots, you can utter things in a language that's been around for millennia, and know that it was the same, those were the same words that your ancestors before you also recited. And it was also a way of sort of forging ahead in the future and really showing that we as Jews can not only survive as a people, but thrive. So that's what I think a synagogue really means. And that's why it was even more devastating because the people who died at Tree of Life represented all of those things. And I also have come to learn that there's a lot of synagogues and Squirrel Hill and it's

considered like a very special place for Jewish people. Yeah. It is, I think there's like a statistic and I might be wrong, but it actually has like more Jews per like square mile or whatever the metric is. Like the most dense Jewish population in a neighborhood, like it's only like second to like New York City or something or like Brooklyn or something like that. It's a very, yeah, Squirrel Hill in a way is its own kind of synagogue. Everybody knows everybody. Everybody's mother is part of the same. Like I like to call it like the Jewish like mother's mafia, you know, like the gossip mill and everything. But yeah, you just you walk down the street and you'll see, you'll definitely see somebody you know or somebody that is friends with your mother or like your sister's best friend's cousin or like

you're, you know, it's a place where to borrow the tagline from Cheers, everybody knows your name. Growing up in Pittsburgh, especially like as a Jewish person growing up in Squirrel Hill, I realized how lucky I was to be able to grow up in a somewhat like secure environment where I could express myself. as a Jew, and where I could be openly Jewish and have other people understand what that means. Not to say that I didn't encounter anti-Semitism in Pittsburgh as a child or even now I have. I still have a memory I was like five or six, and I was walking home from the bus stop after school, like back to my house. And this was in another neighborhood in Pittsburgh called Point Breeze. There's like a Catholic school that was nearby where I lived at the same.

the time. And like the first time I heard the word kike, I was five years old because boys at the Catholic school were like yelling at that word at me, you know, from behind the chicken wire fence where they were, I don't know, like playing basketball or something. I'm so sorry. Oh, it's okay. It's, it's, I mean, this stuff happens. The thing that sucks about navigating the world being yourself is that for some reason people find that a distraction or a bother. And it's, I'm lucky enough to know that that's not the case and to know better than that. And to have, have a more open heart because of it. On October 27, 2018, I was actually not in Pittsburgh.

I was in Lancaster County, where my partner at the time, where they're from and where their family lived, we were visiting their family. My former partner is Mennonite and actually grew up in an evangelical home. So the day that the shooting happened, I was actually preparing to go to a potluck that the church was throwing. And I was ironing a shirt. I just wanted to look my best. And I also sort of like have a thing about, I guess, looking as pressed as possible,

not only when meeting new people, but in places like Lancaster County where I'm usually like the only Jew in like a six mile radius or something. I always just want to be, look my best. And I've been in a position where I'm sometimes the first Jew. somebody has ever met. So I was thinking about that when my former partner told me to check my phone. They told me to go on Twitter and said, Tree of Life. So I did. And I saw that I had missed calls from my mom and my stepdad who would have normally been attending services that day. And they weren't there that day. I can't even.

remember why. I think they might have slept in or something. It was something like so small, like they would have been there otherwise. I remember I fell to the ground. Like I was on my knees and I kept hearing a sound and it sounded like wailing and it took me a moment or it felt like forever, but it took me a moment to realize that that sound was coming from me. I was the one who was wailing, and I couldn't stop. So my former partner and my former partner's mother actually dropped to the ground alongside me and held me. And my former partner's mother started to actually pray, which was very disorienting. I consider it a lovely gesture. It was weird hearing the name Jesus in that moment, but I knew that it was supposed to be a source of comfort, and it was.

I remember after that, like after I felt like I couldn't scream anymore, I felt empty and hollow and bewildered and I just didn't know what to do. And I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. So my former partner actually suggested that we drive a few minutes away to this central market in Lancaster City. so I could just sort of like walk around and distract myself, which was a good thing. That's something that I definitely needed to do. So I remember walking in this sort of like, it's almost like an old 100-year-old like warehouse type of building with really high ceilings. It's an indoor market. And I felt so aimless. And I turned, I turned to my former partner and I said, I need, we need, we need to go home. And my partner at the time said, okay, all right.

So we grabbed our things and said goodbye to their family and drove back. And the car ride, I was talking to other people. We were still waiting for names. And I was sort of like keeping my eyes glued to Twitter and I was texting people. And I work as a writer and as a journalist. And I realized that like updating like my Twitter feed or like tweeting stuff that I knew because I had like insider intel being a member of of tree of life, I thought that maybe it could help people in a way. So with permission, I was sort of like tweeting pieces of information that I was

receiving. I was updating the death count, which at first we heard was eight and then ultimately 11. And I was crying a lot while doing it. I was on the phone with my mom, who told me some of the people in the first two were David and Cecil, who were the brothers at Tree of Life who had fragile X syndrome, who my stepfather was very, very close to. And I just remember my mom saying over and over, I knew that Cecil would be. She said, that she knew that Cecil would be the first to have been shot because he sort of like made it his job to stand near the doorway and greet congregants as they came in through the door and say Shabbat Shalom. And she then said that she knew that would have meant David would have also died because he

because he couldn't be without his brother. and he would have gone from where he was sitting in the chapel to run to him to make sure that he was okay. Other names that came in, Rose Mallinger, was the grandmother of a boy who I used to be friends with in middle school and who I also went to high school with, an old friend of mine.

This kid, Jared, who I also went to high school with and who I was friends with after high school for a time. His father was also one of the dead. And even the people who I didn't have a more direct relationship with, I knew their faces. I knew their names. My stepdad specifically as his role as executive director had a relationship with all of them. And my stepdad, he's a really big guy. He has this, I always joke that he looks like a very stern Michael McDonald from the Doobie brothers.

He has like this shock of white hair. He's really tall and he just spent days and days in bed, like curled up like a child. The role of an executive director in a synagogue, perhaps like the biggest role, has to do with like Jewish burials, figuring out burial plots. It's almost like kind of like part community leader and then part funeral director in a weird way. So I just kept thinking about how he must have been thinking about the maps of the cemetery, Truth Life Cemetery that he had in his office and where they were going to go. So the drive from Lancaster County to Pittsburgh is about five hours. I think we managed to somehow get there in four or so.

And by the time we got back, night had fallen. and they were hosting a vigil on the streets of Squirrel Hill, specifically Forbes and Murray, which are sort of like the two main arteries of Squirrel Hill, and is also the corner where the Jewish Community Center is. So we were driving through Squirrel Hill, and there were just thousands of people there. It was raining, and it was remarkable, but it brought no real comfort, at least not to me. And afterwards, we stopped by the house of some family friends, my mother's best friend. And when I saw my mom, I just hugged her and didn't want to let go.

I couldn't believe that she was safe. And then I couldn't believe that so many people weren't. part of the thing is about my background specifically as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors is that was very clear to me and it was something I learned as a very young child that the idea of something how something doesn't happen here is a falsity. It's just wishful thinking because stuff like that happens everywhere. You can just be lucky enough never to have to encounter it firsthand. I mean people are critical. capable of such great good, but they're also capable of such hate. And to think that people who are capable of hate only exist in sort of like the wings or in faraway places is ridiculous.

Unfortunately, hate knows no bounds, like love knows no bounds, either side of the coin, right? Or whatever the saying is. So understanding that was a very core part of how I grew up because my family was proof. I mean, my Oma and my opa, my father's parents, were they were only two out of, I mean, both of their families were pretty much entirely eradicated. My Oma had one sibling,

her younger sister that survived. My Opa had his step-sister and stepmother survive. No one else. Those are generations and generations to come that were just wiped out. So, like, yeah, the idea that's something like this had happened in Pittsburgh wasn't, that wasn't the biggest shock to me.

The shock was so many other people denying that such a thing could take place in a city like Pittsburgh or in a neighborhood like Squirrel Hill. The mayor of Pittsburgh called the day of the shooting the darkest day in Pittsburgh history. Yeah.

And it's actually as far as I know the deadliest attack against Jewish Americans in the history of the history of the United States. Yeah. What was it like to process such a horrific trauma? I, you know, I wanted to throw myself into something that I thought could help other people. And I mean, it was a way to distract myself, like to both distract and also somehow simultaneously process my feelings about it. So I did what I did. I worked as a journalist. I

I was contacted by a couple of media outlets, not as a journalist, but as a resident of Squirrel Hill. Well, a former resident of Squirrel Hill, but like as a member of Tree of Life to share like my thoughts about what was happening at the time. But I was also contacted by news outlets like Into, which is like a now defunct LGBTQ news site. And I worked as like a stringer reporter to cover. stuff like the vigils that followed afterwards. I just sort of like hit the ground running and I was on the streets. I was also doing like, I mean reporting through my Twitter account by sort of tweeting like on the ground observations, especially for the rally that occurred two or three days after

the shooting. When Trump came to the site of the shooting, which the Jewish community in Pittsburgh rallied against him doing from the get-go. My mom was also a part of a lot of these, like a lot of these demonstrations. There was actually, she was right up front at Tree of Life the day of the rally.

They had already gated it up. It remains that way today. It's sort of like now fenced in. And nobody, like the buildings remained empty since the shooting, more or less. But she was basically right outside it. And there was actually a Jew for Jesus who was going around with pamphlets,

who was basically trying to proselytize two people who were in, like, the deepest throes of grief. And my mom just turned to him, and she just yelled, how fucking dare you? And there was, like, Anderson Cooper was, like, 10 feet away, and, like, a bunch of, like, international reporters were there and witnessed it, and one of them turned to my mom and said,

you rock. Like, you're my hero. There's always humor in the darkest situations, right? I agree. Yeah, but we... Such a badass move. Good for you. Yeah, she's a badass lady.

But yeah, she, like, we both kind of did the same thing. We were throwing ourselves into it. My stepdad was, he couldn't, I mean, he couldn't cope, which is understandable. He was really, like, he was more or less incapacitated for days and days. And then, of course, like, we were thinking about the burials in Jewish tradition. The funeral more or less, like, immediately takes place. after a death, partially because we don't embalm. So there's, I mean, practicality's sake, like, in terms of decomposition,

but it's just a ritual. Part of that ritual is sort of like, like, 11 people will, like, sort of, like, guard over, or a number of people, at least 10 will, like, guard over the body and sort of, like, cleanse it. Part of it is sort of, like, in a way, like, reassuring to mourners that, like, the body is being taken care of, and that the person who has died is to, still not alone. But of course, this time was different because these bodies had to be autopsied. There was a lot of waiting around for that. So that process could be immediately enacted.

There were just so many funerals. Yeah. I know my mom went to Joyce's, and she went to Cecil and David's. I was going to go to Jared's dad's, but I couldn't work up the energy. I couldn't Yeah, but he spoke at his father's funeral. It was just some, it's just kind of a wash. And part of that has to do with PTSD, I guess. And part of it has to do with sort of the overwhelming nature of 11 funerals happening in such a quick succession. And knowing that everybody you know is in mourning and is touched by it in some way.

after those initial few days, like I said, it's a little bit of a blur. I mean, I did receive like a number of texts just from people I knew both in Pittsburgh and outside of Pittsburgh. There's an activist group, like a Jewish activist group that I was involved with at the time called If Not Now, they're a really great organization. They offered safe spaces sort of like like a Shiva evenings or periods of time to sort of openly be with people. Like, I remember there was like one at this place called Moysha House, which is a place where recipients of the Moysha Fellowship lived. It's a community action-oriented sort of fellowship for Jewish post-grads. Or they had like a massive invite for anybody in the Jewish community to just come over and they were going to make a ton of soup. So everybody could like have some comfort food and just sit and be together.

So people were really doing their best to reach out and to be there for one another and be supportive. I just felt numb the entire time. And I mean, there was a real outpouring of love from people who I hadn't talked to in years, friends far and wide. But it was just so hard to process all at once. Part of my particular reaction to it was because only maybe six or eight weeks before the shooting happened, I had lost one of my closest friends from college in a car accident, which it was very, or a hit and run. It was really unexpected. So it was almost like a double shock in terms of like I had just gone through this process of grieving.

And I thought I was coming out of it the other side. Okay. I thought I was starting to. And then this happened. And it was just sort of like a double whammy. Yeah. I'm so sorry. From like September 1st to the end of,

October, I refer to it as like the danger zone just because like with PTSD and anxiety, I get like really, really bad panic attacks. I get panic attacks like a lot. But like within that, that frame, that time frame, I always have to be on the lookout and like be on my guard. And I'm lucky enough to like have resources now and that act as a safety network both with loved ones and also just like a really great therapist, a really great LGBTQ health clinic that I go to, and I'm lucky enough to, like, have health insurance right now. So all those

safeguards are in place, and it's something that, like, is a privilege, and I know so many other people don't have the privilege that I have in this case. But yeah, it's really a doozy. I, I guess the Vanity Fair piece, should I start talking about that? Next time. Something Was Wrong is produced and hosted by me, Tiffany Reese. Music on this episode from Gladrags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. If you'd like to help support the growth of Something Was Wrong, you can help by leaving a positive review,

sharing the podcast with your family, friends, and followers, and support at patreon.com slash something was wrong. Something Was Wrong now has a free virtual survivor support forum at something was wrong.com. can remain as anonymous as you need. Thank you so much for listening. Eight farmers to switch, and you could save an average of $470 on your auto insurance.

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