It required the passing of 11 months — a year of work and worry, a year of reflection, a year after the murder of 11 Jews at prayer — for me to reach full clarity about what had happened three blocks from my home, at the corner of Wilkins and Shady Avenues in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
One month, perhaps, for each worshiper killed at the Tree of Life synagogue on that fateful October morning in a half-empty sanctuary now wiped clean of even the last molecule of blood, now as much a symbol as a synagogue. The same number of months that observant Jews daily recite the Mourner's Kaddish for a lost parent.
Read Full Article »