Tree of Life Synagogue to Break Ground on New Sanctuary, and New Mission

Debates over antisemitism have flared for months on college campuses, in local government meetings and in Congress, in many cases boiling down to bitter disagreements over what is, and what is not, antisemitism.

There was no such argument five and a half years ago in Pittsburgh. When 11 worshipers were killed at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, the gunman who carried out the massacre was blunt in his bigotry, declaring beforehand on social media that he was acting out of a conviction that Jewish people were conspiring to replace the white race.

On Sunday, members of the Tree of Life congregation will gather to break ground for a memorial and a new Tree of Life building. The airy, angular structure, designed by the architect Daniel Libeskind, will house a sanctuary for the Tree of Life congregation — one of three congregations that were meeting at the synagogue at the time of the shooting — an education center dedicated to combating bigotry and a museum chronicling the long history of antisemitism in America.

It is a story that has gotten more complicated to tell since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the war that has followed.

“It makes our job harder, and I’m sure we’re going to have to wade into some fairly difficult waters,” said Michael Bernstein, the chair of the Tree of Life board of directors. But “that is the point of what we have to do,” he added, “to allow people to engage in this much more deeply.”

The museum will be the first in the United States dedicated exclusively to the history of antisemitism in America, from the colonial days through the hard-line anti-immigrant politics of the mid-20th century to the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, and beyond. The museum will show how the mass shooting at Tree of Life was an especially dark day, but nonetheless part of an old affliction in America.