Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
On October 27, 2018, a man attacked Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The congregation, along with New Light Congregation and Congregation Dor Hadash, which also worshiped in the building, was attacked during Shabbat morning services. The perpetrator killed eleven people and wounded six, in the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community in American history.
The perpetrator, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers, was shot multiple times by police and arrested at the scene. Bowers had earlier posted antisemitic comments against HIAS on the online alt-tech social network Gab. Dor Hadash had participated in HIAS's National Refugee Shabbat the previous week. Referring to Central American migrant caravans and immigrants, Bowers posted a message on Gab in which he wrote that "HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in." He was charged with 63 federal crimes, some of them capital crimes. Bowers pleaded not guilty. In 2023, he was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
Background
Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation is a Conservative Jewish synagogue. The synagogue describes itself as a "traditional, progressive, and egalitarian congregation". It is located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about east of downtown Pittsburgh. The Squirrel Hill neighborhood is one of the largest predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in the United States and has historically been the center of Pittsburgh's Jewish community. About 26 percent of the city's Jewish population live in the area.Originally founded as an Orthodox Jewish congregation in 1864 in downtown Pittsburgh, by an early group of Jewish immigrants, Tree of Life merged in 2010 with the recently founded Congregation Or L'Simcha. The modern synagogue building, located at the intersection of Wilkins and Shady avenues in Squirrel Hill, was built in 1953. The congregation also rents space to Dor Hadash, a Reconstructionist congregation; and New Light, another Conservative congregation. The synagogue's main sanctuary has a capacity of 1,250 people.
Squirrel Hill has a low crime rate and is not generally regarded as racially tense. However, local rabbinic student Neal Rosenblum was murdered in the neighborhood in 1986 in an antisemitic hate crime.
This 2018 mass shooting took place soon after Columbia University and the Anti-Defamation League independently reported a spike in antisemitic activity online, especially on the popular social networking platforms Instagram and Twitter. In addition, other antisemitic acts had been committed elsewhere.
The immediate rise in the months of August to October 2018 was attributed to rising tensions associated with advertising for the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. A similar rise in online attacks had occurred during the 2016 US election, with the midterms being a "rallying point" for far-right extremists to organize efforts to spread antisemitism online among the populace. In 2017, there was a 57% rise in antisemitic incidents in the United States, in context of rising hate crimes against other groups, including Muslims and African Americans, as reported by the FBI. For instance, hundreds of Jewish gravestones were vandalized in Pennsylvania and Missouri, and antisemitic incidents on university campuses doubled in number.
In August 2017, the widely publicized Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia featured Nazi symbols, salutes, and the slogan "Blood and Soil", among other racist and antisemitic rhetoric. Considerable antisemitic material was being spread online via conspiracy theories about wealthy Jewish individuals, including billionaire George Soros. Columbia University's Jon Albright said that these represented the "worst sample" of all the hate speech he had seen on Instagram.
Shooting
At 9:45 a.m. EDT, three religious services were underway in the Tree of Life synagogue, which housed three distinct congregations. Tree of Life and New Light had both begun independent Shabbat morning service in the Pervin Chapel and basement, respectively. The Dor Hadash congregants were gathered near the front of the building, prior to their 10:00 a.m. Torah study session. At around the same time, a car belonging to the gunman was parked in front of the synagogue in a disabled parking space. The car was loaded with five guns, including a Mossberg shotgun that was left in the car, hearing protection, three shooting glasses, a large green bag containing ammunition for both the rifle and shotgun, and ammunition for the Glock pistols. The shooter accessed the website Gab on his phone and posted a final post on his profile at 9:49 a.m.Five minutes later, a gunman, identified as Robert Bowers and described as a "bearded heavy-set white male", opened fire, entered the building, and was "shooting for about 20 minutes." He was armed with a Colt AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and three Glock.357 SIG semi-automatic pistols. He was dressed in a large red/gray windbreaker over a smaller grey jacket, blue jeans, white sneakers, a light blue shirt, and had a smaller pouch of ammunition on him. Evidence recovered from the scene determined he only fired the Colt rifle and the Glock 31 during the shooting. He also carried several magazines for the rifle and his three Glock handguns: one 40-round.223 magazine, two 20-round.223 magazines, five 15-round.357 magazines, one 13-round.357 magazine, and one 9-round.357 magazine. There would typically be around 75 people in the building on a Saturday morning, but on the day of the shooting, only 22 people were present.
When Bowers got out of his car, he opened fire at a window of the synagogue. Several people in the synagogue heard the first shots. Some hearing the shots did not initially recognize them for what they were: Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, located upstairs, thought a coat rack had fallen and clattered. Bowers entered the synagogue through the shattered window and encountered his first two victims: Jerry Rabinowitz of Dor Hadash and Daniel Leger. Both men had a background in medical work. They both ran downstairs from the lobby to investigate the gunshots and check to see if anyone was hurt. Bowers shot Rabinowitz to death at the lower mezzanine before shooting Leger in the abdomen. Leger fell on the stairs and laid there bleeding before being rescued 45 minutes later. Just after Rabinowitz and Leger ran downstairs, Irving Younger and Cecil Rosenthal left the Pervin Chapel and went downstairs to investigate the gunshots. Younger was able to reach the lower mezzanine only to be fatally shot by Bowers. He shouted Rosenthal's name before dying. Cecil Rosenthal ran back upstairs and tried running into the Pervin Chapel. Bowers quickly followed Rosenthal and shot him to death just as he reached a doorway to the chapel. Just after entering the chapel, Bowers shot Sylvan Simon, who was next to his wife, in the back before leaving the chapel. By 9:54, police began receiving multiple calls from people barricaded in the building and reporting the attack. The first 911 call was made by Sylvan Simon's wife, Bernice, to report that her husband had been shot at the synagogue.
When the shooting started, Audrey Glickman, Joseph Charny, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, and David Rosenthal ran to the front of the Pervin Chapel. They decided to hide in an area above the Pervin Chapel. Rosenthal was under distress and exclaimed that he wanted to "go home". Glickman tried stopping him, but to no avail. Rosenthal ran back to the chapel. The other three parted ways with Myers hiding in a bathroom and Glickman and Charny hiding in a clothing donation room. When Bowers was about to go to the basement leading to New Light's service, he encountered David Rosenthal and Joyce Fienberg on the stairs leading to the lower mezzanine. Both of them had accidentally ran into Bowers as they were trying to escape. He shot both of them to death.
At 9:55, Melvin Wax, the leader of New Light's services, hid in a pitch-black closet in the storage hallway of the basement along with three other people, including Rabbi Jonathan Perlman who lead the congregants to the closet. Around the same time, two other members of New Light, Richard Gottfried and Daniel Stein hid in the basement kitchen. Gottfried made a 911 call at 9:55 which lasted until 9:56. When Bowers reached the basement, he approached the kitchen. In the kitchen, he fired at both Gottfried and Stein through the kitchen island, killing them both. In an interview with a psychologist after the shooting, Bowers referred back to that moment and remarked about how "ironic" it was that he killed both men in front of the ovens of the kitchen. Bowers went back to the main sermon room of the basement and approached the storage hallway. Still unaware of what was happening despite Perlman begging him not to do it, Wax opened the door of the closet and Bowers immediately shot him twice at point-blank range. The latter did not notice the other three congregants who remained in the closet. Just after Bowers shot Wax, one of the congregants called 911 at 9:58. At 9:58, Bowers left the basement and headed back upstairs to go back to his car. Just as he reached the entrance doors, he encountered two police officers at the other side. Bowers immediately opened fire, hitting one of the officers in the hand and injuring the other with shrapnel to the head at 9:58:52 a.m.
Bowers ran back into the mezzanine and went upstairs to target the worshippers at the Pervin Chapel again. He began firing shots at them at 10:01:18 a.m. As Bowers reentered the Pervin Chapel, he approached Andrea Wedner and her mother, Rose Mallinger. Wedner was on the phone with police as Bowers returned to the chapel. Bowers shot both women, killing Mallinger and wounding Wedner with a shot to her right arm. The officer who was injured in the head walked along the synagogue and was able to see Bowers again through a lobby window. Seeing Bowers at the doorway of the Pervin Chapel, he fired five times through the window at Bowers. Bowers fired back at the officer at 10:01:35 a.m. Neither of them hit each other during the brief firefight. Bowers approached the Simons again. During that moment, Bernice was still calling 911 while hugging her now-deceased husband. Bowers shot Bernice to death and shot Sylvan again. The 911 operator on the other end recalled hearing Bernice's agonal breathing. The death of Bernice Simon was recorded at 10:01:48 a.m. When the shooting began, 12 worshippers had gathered for the Shabbat service in the Pervin Chapel. Rabbi Myers helped three of them evacuate the chapel safely. Four of the worshippers left the chapel by themselves, only to be killed by Bowers outside, while four other worshippers remained in the chapel, only to be shot. Out of the 12 worshippers, Bowers shot 8 of them, killing 7 and wounding 1. The 13th worshipper only arrived late while the police was responding to the shooting. Police sources said Bowers shouted at some point during the attack, "All Jews must die!"
About a half-hour later, tactical teams entered the building. They searched the rooms of the synagogue looking for the shooter. Eventually, at 10:53, several officers entered a classroom on the top floor of the synagogue. Bowers opened fire with his rifle and Glock 31, and shot two SWAT members. At the same time, the SWAT team fired shots at Bowers in the dark classroom. Two minutes later, officers engaged in another firefight with Bowers, who was using his Glock handgun because he had no ammunition left for the rifle. He had wounded two officers and two SWAT members, one of them critically. At 11:08, Bowers crawled out of the room and surrendered, having been shot multiple times. As he received medical care in police custody, he allegedly told a SWAT officer that he wanted Jews to die and that Jews were committing genocide against his people. He was searched for weapons and police recovered two unused, loaded Glock handguns that were recovered from a waist holster and ankle holster, and three 15-round.357 magazines. He was also questioned about leaving a clock in the hallway in which Bowers told them that the object was a "Screaming Meanie" trucker alarm clock.
Bowers discharged his rifle 75 times and discharged the Glock 31 17 times during the shooting.