The Jewish congregation that once gathered in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighbourhood is inching forward with a plan to repurpose its building, two years after an attacker shot and killed 11 Jews in an anti-Semitic rampage.
On Wednesday, the congregation named a raft of celebrities who have signed on to a fundraising campaign to rebuild at the corner of Wilkins and Shady Avenues. The existing building, the site of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history, has stood empty since the attack.
The honorary fundraising team includes actors Tom Hanks and Billy Porter, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto and Joanne Rogers, the widow of “Mister” (Fred) Rogers, a longtime Pittsburgh resident.
Hanks played Mr. Rogers in the 2019 drama, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Porter is best known for his role in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots. He grew up in Pittsburgh and attended Taylor Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill.
The team will work alongside congregational leaders to solicit funding for a yet-unspecified project. The congregation has not determined whether it will reconfigure the Brutalist-style synagogue building with its exposed concrete exterior or raze it and start from scratch.
“When you get to be 92, there’s not much you can do,” said Joanne Rogers, the widow of Fred Rogers, whose children’s television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was produced in Pittsburgh. “I explained that to the rabbi. And he said, ‘Joanne, we just want your heart in it.’ And I said, ‘Great. It’s there.’”
Read the article by Yonat Shimron in Sight Magazine.