Seven Years After Tree of Life: What It Means to Be Secure, and to Be Seen
Seven years have passed since that terrible morning in Pittsburgh when a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue and murdered eleven Jews at prayer, the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. For those of us in the Jewish community, the horror of that day remains painfully vivid: the sanctity of Shabbat shattered, the lives of beloved elders taken, the feeling that even our houses of worship were no longer safe.
And yet, seven years on, memory alone is not enough. Commemoration must compel us to act, to ask what safety, solidarity, and Jewish moral courage really mean in our time.
The Tree of Life attack was not an isolated eruption of hate. It was the violent convergence of antisemitism, white nationalism, racism, and xenophobia, a reminder that the Jewish struggle against hate cannot be separated from the broader struggle against hate in America. The gunman was animated by conspiracy theories about immigrants and “globalists,” the same rhetoric that has targeted Black activists, Muslim Americans, refugees, and other vulnerable communities. Our response, then and now, must be rooted in that same intersectional clarity: that our safety as Jews is bound up with the safety of all.
True security cannot come from walls, weapons, or political demagoguery. It comes from building a society where no one is targeted for who they are; where empathy is stronger than fear; where leaders refuse to weaponize antisemitism for partisan ends. We must reject those who invoke “Jewish safety” only to justify hatred or oppression, whether directed at Muslims, migrants, or Palestinians.
Seven years later, we also face a Jewish communal reckoning. How do we hold our grief while holding onto our moral compass? How do we honor the victims of Tree of Life, not only as symbols of Jewish suffering, but as Jews who lived their moral values, who welcomed the stranger, who believed in community, who showed up for others?
To remember them truly is to live out their legacy, by refusing to surrender to cynicism or fear. It is to build coalitions, to speak truth even when it is uncomfortable, and to believe that the Jewish call for justice (“tzedek, tzedek tirdof”) is not a slogan, but a commandment.
As we mark this anniversary, may we recommit to the vision of Jewish life that Tree of Life represented before it became a headline: open, compassionate, rooted in Torah, and inseparable from the work of repairing the world. May the memories of those we lost continue to bless and challenge us, to create a world where no one has to pray behind locked doors, and where being Jewish means being a light for all who are vulnerable in the dark.
Zichronam livracha. May their memories be a blessing