Collegian
The Friday, November 2, 2018
The Grove City College Student Newspaper
Vol. 103, No. 8
HATE CAN’T BREAK
THE CITY OF STEEL
Tree of Life tragedy hits close to home
I
n Mr. Rogers’ own neighborhood, gunshots disturbed the peaceful service at Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday morning. In the hills of Western Pennsylvania, up to 90 neighborhoods join to create the city of Pittsburgh. Squirrel Hill, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, felt the deep wounds of loss when an active shooter killed 11 members of the local synagogue. The whole city grieved with them. “Squirrel Hill is known for being such a good neighborhood: the people are friendly and diverse and we have always felt safe here,” recent Grove City graduate Anne Dupee ’18 said. She works as a care manager at Wesley Family Services and lives less than a mile from Tree of Life synagogue. Miriam Levenson, a senior at Robert Morris University, grew up only a three-minute drive from Tree of Life Synagogue. A Jew herself, she attended Beth Shalom synagogue growing up. She now attends at holidays throughout the year. “When I heard the names, they all sounded familiar,” Levenson said. Her family lives down the street from the son of Rose Mallinger, the 97-year-old Holocaust survivor who was killed by the shooter. “It’s a town where everyone knows everyone,” she said. “Pittsburgh has all the amenities of a big city, but it’s a small city.” “There is diversity, but there is unity among that diversity,” Levenson said. Another neighborhood is the community of Baldwin, where Grove City College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 hails from. The alleged shooter, Robert Bowers, attended the same high school as McNulty. The news hit the president on multiple levels: “I had these stages, starting with the horror and shock of the event itself, which would be that for any place it was located, but then it’s Pittsburgh, and then I learned that the assailant is from my high school.” “Historically, Pittsburgh’s crime rate was very low,” McNulty said. “The neighborhoods were these people who had these ethnic, religious and racial connections to each other.
Editorial:
Together we will flourish Pittsburgh is a city of steel, a melting pot of faiths and ethnicities forged in the course of shared struggles. The city of steel has always balanced its collage of identities: German and Scots-Irish, Italian and Polish, Chinese and Indian, black and white. Saturday’s hateful and tragic attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill was more than just an attack on the Jewish community: it was an attack on the whole city. The city of steel knows that an attack on one is an attack on the whole. Each community knows that apart they will fail and together they will flourish. A house divided cannot stand. The city of steel has shown its unity in the aftermath of the attack. As Jews mourn their dead, Christians of every denomination have condemned the hatred that propelled it and Muslims have raised $200,000 and counting for the victim’s families. Grove City College is a patchwork community too. Many of us It made the bonds tighter.” But Pittsburgh is not a perfect city. Though not a dominant theme, it does have issues with crime and violence. “There have been a lot of shootings in Pittsburgh, but it’s mostly between gangs or criminals,” said recent Grove City graduate Dan Peiffer ’18, who now works for WPXI in Pittsburgh. The massacre shocked the community and the nation. Because of the anti-Semitic nature of the act, the whole event intensified. Terror Ensues At 10:43 a.m., less than an hour after the first gunfire, Grove City graduate Andrew Stein ’18 parked his 2008 Food Focus on the corner of Shady and Wilkins avenues in Squir-
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come from around Pittsburgh: New Castle and Canonsburg, Cranberry and Bethel Park. Our community is not just an offshoot of Pittsburgh however. We come from across the country, from California to Virginia and New York to Florida. Our community draws from outside America, too, reaching into Asia, Africa and Europe. We ought to follow Pittsburgh’s example and come together in the face of hatred and evil, or else we will be left divided at the next attack. Because there will be another attack. There is always another attack. Sin is pervasive and it is not going away. We must not become numb to the sin surrounding us, because if we do not see the terrible reality of the world around us, we do not see the need for a savior. We have to use this as an opportunity to shine light in the darkness, as a community. We are strongest when we stand together. A house divided cannot stand. rel Hill. He would not return to his car until 3 a.m. the next day. The next vehicle he encountered was a gold Chevy Malibu which served as his armor of defense he hid behind while the sound of gunshot rang in his ears. Formerly a photographer for The Collegian, Stein is now a photojournalist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His co-worker took cover behind a nearby wall, and they both made the story their first priority. “We have a job,” Stein said. “Our job is to tell the story. Second is to not get in the way of police, and then lastly think of my safety.” But police cautioned the reporters, neighbors and passers-by to back away and stay inside.
Hit me LIFE
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