August 23, 2019 | 22 Av 5779
Candlelighting 7:48 p.m. | Havdalah 8:47 p.m. | Vol. 62, No. 34 | pittsburghjewishchronicle.org
NOTEWORTHY LOCAL Healing journey The Pittsburgh Resiliency Center will open in October. Page 2
Studying community: Young adults find ways to engage with Judaism that is different than their parents
$1.50
Rabbi Jonathan Perlman speaks on the massacre, the media and moving forward
LOCAL Emissaries arrive
By Toby Tabachnick | Senior Staff Writer
I Israeli family adjusts to life in Pittsburgh.
By David Rullo | Staff Writer
R
Back to school
Administrators and staff get ready for new initiatives. Page 4
Please see Millennials, page 11
Please see Perlman, page 14
Residents of Moishe House
File photo
Page 3 LOCAL
helped build a temple in Cleveland,” Robin said, noting that her first thought was to have the wedding in her hometown, but the temple was in the middle of a rabbinic transition. “This is kind of unconventional,” she said, “but we decided to find the rabbi first. We were like, ‘Do you do weddings in Connecticut?’ He said yes and we were like, ‘How about conversion?’ He said yes. So we were able to find a great rabbi.” Robin said she feels engaged with Judaism, primarily through tradition and family, and often travels back to Cleveland for holidays. That doesn’t mean she isn’t connected to her Pittsburgh community. “I feel like we’re connected, no matter how infrequently we end up at temple. We’ll probably be attending more now that we’re not planning a wedding.” The couple considers themselves liberal in most aspects of observance, including kashrut. They don’t keep kosher “in a strict
n the days following the massacre at the Tree of Life building, the international, national and local media swarmed upon Squirrel Hill, relentless in their pursuit of interviews with survivors and the families of victims. As the rabbi of New Light Congregation — one of the three congregations targeted in the attack — Rabbi Jonathan Perlman was barraged by requests from journalists to speak about the nightmare he had just experienced. “That first week or so, people were knocking on my door,” recalled Perlman, who saved himself and two other congregants by moving to a dark storage room during the attack. “People were slipping cards under my door that said, ‘Katie Couric wants to speak to you.’” The soft-spoken rabbi did not respond to the request to speak with Couric, nor most of the others. He saw no point in doing so. “I was traumatized, I was grief-stricken, I was really worried about keeping myself together and what I was going to do,” said Perlman, who, 10 months after the mass shooting, is on the road to personal healing. “I really didn’t feel it was helpful to speak to the press. I really felt like, for me, that was very self-serving and just got in the way of what I really wanted to do and it would only re-traumatize me if I had to tell my story over and over and over again. So early on, I decided that if I were to speak, I would speak to be helpful to the Jewish community.” It has taken Perlman awhile to come to terms with the heartbreak and trauma of
This is the second in a 10-part series, exploring the data of the 2017 Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community Study through the people it represents.
obin Engel is a 29-year-old architect living in the South Hills with her husband, John. The newlyweds have been married for a little over two months. He owns a comic bookstore in State College and travels back and forth between Central and Western Pennsylvania. As a result, the two don’t regularly attend Shabbat Services at Temple Emanuel of South Hills, the Reform synagogue where they are members. The pair’s work schedule isn’t the only nontraditional thing about the couple. In fact, both Robin’s parents and grandparents would likely view many aspects of her and her generation’s relationship to Judaism as both nontraditional and different from their experience. John converted to Judaism through an online conversion process that required weekly virtual meetings with a rabbi the couple found while planning their wedding. “My grandparents and great-grandparents
keep your eye on PittsburghJewishChronicle
NATIONAL Omar/Tlaib trip itinerary
WORLD Israeli diplomacy
FILM New ‘Fiddler’ doc