The Wandering Jew

The Jewish Home | JULY 14, 2022

The Wandering Jew Mini Trips Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

By Hershel Lieber

At the tail end of May 2003, we went on a mini vacation trip to Pittsburgh, PA. Our trips usually combine visiting general tourist sites with an emphasis on finding opportunities to meet members of the tribe. We arrived Monday afternoon and left Friday morning, which gave us three full days to discover the City of Bridges. Staying on an upper floor of the Hilton across Point State Park gave us a bird’s eye view of the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela Rivers that surround Pittsburgh and some of the 446 bridges that service this city. In fact, Pittsburgh has more bridges than any city in the world including Venice, Italy! Another anomaly is that all the bridges are traditionally painted a yellowish gold. Pittsburgh has another nickname, Steel City, because of its history as the center of America’s steel industry. Hence, the name of its football team is The Pittsburgh Steelers.

Enough history. The day we arrived, we went out for a short walk in the Park, which included a visit at the Block House, the only remnant of the largest and most elaborate British fort, Fort Pitt. Then we headed to Squirrel Hill to eat supper at Platters, a Middle Eastern restaurant. We also went to a kosher supermarket and stocked up on food to take back to our hotel for breakfasts and lunches.

Squirrel Hill is the Jewish neighborhood of Pittsburgh. About forty percent of the residents are Jewish, and about a third of Pittsburgh Jews live there. There are shuls of every denomination, kosher food stores, restaurants, Jewish schools, mikvehs, a kollel, a Jewish book and Judaica shop, and, of course, the neighborhood has a prominent Chabad presence. Recently, the neighborhood gained worldwide recognition from the tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation in October of 2018. Generally, Squirrel Hill is considered one of the city’s safest areas, and the epicenter of its Jewish presence is undoubtedly Murray Avenue.

The drive from Point State Park to Squirrel Hill takes about fifteen minutes, and I drove to Shacharis every morning. I made a point to daven in different

The funicular to the top of Mount Washington

shuls so that I would experience the diversity among the Orthodox population. On Tuesday, I davened at the Shaare Torah Shul of Rabbi Daniel Wasserman. We were just a bit over a minyan in this huge famous shul whose spiritual leader was once the legendary Rabbi Bernard Poupko. When I came back to the hotel, Pesi was having an issue with her eye in that her vision was marred with her seeing specks. We immediately went to see an ophthalmologist who, baruch Hashem, did not think that it was a serious problem.

We began our day by walking in the downtown area for about two hours which included a bit of shopping. After lunch, we went to the Phips Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. This oasis in the middle of a bustling city has over twenty first class gardens and a fourteen-room glasshouse. The weather was just right, and many flowers were in full bloom. What a delightful day! When we finished at the Gardens, I stopped on Murray Avenue to get a haircut. There, I met Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld, the rav of the Lubavitch Center and the Dean of the Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh. We had a very nice conversation, and he invited me to daven with the bar mitzvah age boys on Thursday morning at the yeshiva. Before heading back to our hotel, we partook in a Chinese buffet at the Golden China restaurant.

On Wednesday, I davened Shacharis at Poale Zedeck, which is referred to by everyone as P-Z. One of the people who greeted me was someone named Yale Butler. He was very friendly and wanted to schmooze with me after davening. I had to excuse myself because Pesi was waiting for me at the hotel, and we had scheduled an itinerary which involved specific timing. I made a suggestion that we meet that evening with our spouses at a restaurant where we could leisurely get to know each other. He accepted and suggested Sari’s, where Wednesday’s dinner was dedicated to Mexican food, and we set a time.

After a rushed breakfast, Pesi and I headed to the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. There, they had a collection of thirty-one classrooms as part of an exhibition called “The Nationality Rooms.” The architecture and design of each classroom depicted different nationalities, cultures, and traditions. Twenty of those rooms represented European nations, while the remainder illustrated other countries including one called Israeli Heritage. We were overwhelmed by this beautifully arranged exhibit and spent a long time marveling at this special treat.

We stopped by the Carnegie Museum of Natural

In the glasshouse at the Phips Botanical Gardens The Pittsburgh skyline from Mount Washington

With Judge Dan Butler in the courtroom History and took a funicular up Mount Washington to get a panoramic view of Pittsburgh and the surrounding rivers. Before long, it was time to meet Yale and his wife Bayla at Sari’s. We had the most wonderful time together for the next two and a half hours kibbitzing and sharing our lives and experiences. After dinner, Yale dropped off Bayla and took us for a drive to see the new Homestead Waterfront Shopping Complex, which was built over abandoned steel mills. We also passed the former Duquesne Steel Mills, which had the largest blast furnace in the world. It was a very fulfilling day, but tomorrow’s schedule was still on the horizon.

On Thursday morning, I took up Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld’s invitation and joined the bar mitzvah bochurim at the Chabad Yeshiva for Shacharis. I was rewarded with an aliyah and the treat of seeing those young boys start their passage into adulthood. Pesi and I decided to make this day a bit lighter, and we walked around the downtown area and stopped into a few shops to browse. Actually, Pesi found a suit at Kaufman’s Department Store, which was a great buy. Then I called Yale.

While we had dinner together with our wives, Yale was telling me about his brother, Judge Daniel Butler. Dan, as he is fondly called, was a District Judge at the Allegheny County Municipal Court. Yale said that attending his courtroom is a great lesson in civics and legal jurisprudence as well as a very entertaining experience. Yale said that he would ask his brother to invite us to view the courtroom procedures while he presides over some marriage abuse cases. When I reached Yale, he said that he made the arrangements with his brother and told us what time to be at the courtroom.

We could not find the right building, and we were panicking that we would not arrive on time to enter together with Dan. As we were searching aimlessly for the right building, we heard a voice call out from a passing jeep, “Lieber!” We turned towards the vehicle and saw from both sides. We watched as the prisoners in their bright orange prison garb were brought into the courtroom, and the charges were read by Judge Butler. Most cases were about physical abuse, including the use of weapons. The spouses of the prisoners were given a chance to present their allegations, and the judge listened to the rebuttals given by the prisoners. I do not recall any attorneys representing the prisoners. Judge Butler allowed us to read the documents containing the

As we were searching aimlessly for the right building, we heard a voice call out from a passing jeep, “Lieber!”

a man waving at us towards a building while telling us to wait in front of the door until he parks. When the man joined us, he introduced himself as Dan Butler and said we should follow him through the door which led to his private chambers. In his chamber, Dan donned his judicial robe and put on a toupee. He said he does not sit bareheaded in the courtroom. He told us that we would be sitting on the bench beside him, and he would introduce as fellow jurists from New York. We followed him into the courtroom and sat ourselves flanking Dan charges and even asked us for our opinions. This made us feel as if we had a vital role in the entire three-hour long procedure. It was a scene that we would long remember and an encounter that we will never forget.

The evening ended with dinner at the Milky Way, which was followed by a concert by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall. As we reflected during our six-hour drive back home, we felt very accomplished during this trip. We relaxed, we toured, we met other Jews, and we had some extraordinary experiences.

Hershel Lieber has been involved in kiruv activities for over 30 years. As a founding member of the Vaad L’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel he has traveled with his wife, Pesi, to the Soviet Union during the harsh years of the Communist regimes to advance Yiddishkeit. He has spearheaded a yeshiva in the city of Kishinev that had 12 successful years with many students making Torah their way of life. In Poland, he lectured in the summers at the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation camp for nearly 30 years. He still travels to Warsaw every year – since 1979 – to be the chazzan for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur for the Jews there. Together with Pesi, he organized and led trips to Europe on behalf of Gateways and Aish Hatorah for college students finding their paths to Jewish identity. His passion for travel has taken them to many interesting places and afforded them unique experiences. Their open home gave them opportunities to meet and develop relationships with a variety of people. Hershel’s column will appear in The Jewish Home on a bi-weekly basis.