Eliyahu Gasson | editor-in-chief

Last week, I attended a panel called “The Ethical Responsibilities of Media When Tragedy Strikes a Community,” in part because it was hosted by the Patricia Doherty Yoder Institute for Ethics and Integrity in Journalism and Media, which I’ve been involved with as an undergrad, partially because our advisor Paula Reed Ward was a panelist and partly because it covered two things that have shaped my life: Journalism and the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.

I had to leave as soon as it came to a close. The range of emotions, namely fear, anger, grief and (I guess) duty were too overbearing for a Tuesday evening.

Michele Rosenthal, the sister of Cecil and David Rosenthal, who were killed during the massacre, and one of the panelists, described the synagogue as she was sharing her story. That, I think, is what began my breakdown. I couldn’t help but imagine what was happening inside during the shooting.

I wasn’t a member of either congregation that called the building home, but I had been there for a classmate’s bar mitzvah once, so I’m not unfamiliar with what it used to look like. It was similar to a lot of other Pittsburgh synagogues, expanded over time to make space for growing congregations with new additions. The synagogues I went to as a kid, the Lubavitch Center and B’nai Emunoh, were similar in that way. I spent my childhood in synagogues for Shabbos, holidays and community events.

The talk also got me thinking about what I was doing on the day of the shooting. I was a mile or so down Shady Avenue at home, getting ready to leave the house for a football game. I was in high school at the time, a member of the Taylor Allderdice drumline. My parents warned me about rumors that there was a shooting at Tree of Life, but I was still determined to get to the game because no one had told me not to go.

The school went into lockdown shortly after I got there. The adults hid us away in the choir room under desks. I have no recollection of how long we were in lockdown. I wasn’t timing it. I do remember my drum instructor listening to the police scanner through his phone. I was listening in when an officer repeated some of the words he heard the shooter say. I can’t recall exactly — I wasn’t recording the broadcast — but it was something about wanting to kill Jews.

It’s been almost eight years since that day. I was a kid when it happened. Now I’m 25 and about to graduate with a pretty clear idea of what my future with a bachelor’s degree might be. I’ve been thinking now more than ever about what is important to me.

When I left the panel in tears, it wasn’t just because I was sad or reliving some traumatic experience. I was reminded too at the talk about the aftermath of what was the most tragic day in Squirrel Hill’s history.

After the lockdown and after I went home and after my whole family got some rest, we went together to a vigil at the intersection of Murray and Shady avenues with hundreds of other Pittsburghers to mourn what had happened.

Soon after, we got the “Stronger than Hate” design and my peers at Allderdice were printing out Tree of Life t-shirts for everyone. I had my own and wore it for as long as it fit on me.

Listening to the panel last week gave me a reason to think about what happened to us and what it means even this far out. The respect of boundaries shown by the reporters, the cooperation between news outlets. The respect shown by everyone involved in the prosecution, the victims and the journalists proved to me that what is and should be most important is community.

In November, The Duke, the Media Department and Duquesne as a whole lost Maggie Jones Patterson, who was a mentor to a great many people as well as to me. In December, my dog Charlie, who was a gentleman and a scholar, died in my mother’s arms surrounded by his family.  

I got through these times, and I think others did too, because we had each other to rely on and ourselves to offer to others. We could speak to each other about how we were feeling and listen to how others felt. I have been fortunate enough so far in my life to be a person that others could rely on to support them during tough times, and I’ve been just as fortunate to have people I could rely on.

There’s nothing more beautiful than having a community that makes you feel loved.

Mister Rogers has a way of making me weep. I think the reason is two-fold. In part, it’s nostalgia. He, Daniel Tiger and the little red trolley were all cornerstone symbols of my childhood. The other part is the emphasis on love — loving yourself and loving your neighbors.

No matter what, the most important part about being alive, at least for me, is being there to listen and to help my neighbors when they need me because I know, based on experience, that they’d be there for me when I need them.

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu