Tree of Life in Pittsburgh: the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history
A Sabbath morning, eleven murdered. The killer said he was avenging himself on a Jewish body that helped refugees.
On 27 October 2018, the Sabbath of parashat Vayera, a man with a semi-automatic rifle and three handguns entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. Three congregations were praying in the one building. He murdered eleven people aged fifty-four to ninety-seven and wounded six, including four police officers. Among the dead were the brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, both developmentally disabled, who greeted worshippers at the door, and Rose Mallinger, aged ninety-seven.
Hours before the attack he posted online that HIAS—the oldest Jewish immigrant aid society, founded in 1881—"likes to bring invaders", and that he was going "to kill Jews". The motive was stated openly and bound specifically to Jewish help for other people's refugees.
Squirrel Hill is a neighbourhood where Jewish life has gone on without a break for more than a century; Mister Rogers filmed nearby. After the murders the city's Muslim communities raised over two hundred thousand dollars for the funerals within a week.
In 2023 a federal jury convicted the killer on sixty-three counts and sentenced him to death—the first federal death sentence in a case of anti-Jewish hate crime in the United States. Some of the victims' families publicly asked for life imprisonment instead.
Sources
Documents of the period
- United States v. Bowers, indictment, W.D. Pennsylvania, 2018 — sixty-three counts, the motive stated in the indictment itself
- Federal court sentence, 2023 — the death penalty; some families asked for life imprisonment
Basis: documents and evidence.