Until we meet again: Ceremony marks start of new chapter at Tree of Life synagogue

In the garden outside the Tree of Life synagogue, surrounded by budding plants and green bushes, congregation members and neighbors gathered to say “until we see each other again” to the Squirrel Hill building that once served as a center of worship for many in the Jewish community.

The synagogue housed congregations from Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light.

The ceremony Sunday afternoon brought together about 75 people to say prayers, sing, hug and share memories of the space where a shooter killed 11 congregants and injured two others in an antisemitic attack Oct. 27, 2018.

The Tree of Life congregation met to mark the beginning of a renovation process that is intended to transform the site into a new museum, memorial and worship space.

Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who survived the shooting, led the memorial as he and congregation president Alan Hausman removed the mezuzah scroll from the doorway, to be stored for future use once the building is renovated.

For Myers, and the congregation, the ceremony signified a movement into a new phase in the journey of moving on, as jury selection in the trial of the accused shooter, Robert Bowers, begins Monday.

“We needed to close that chapter today. It’s an important moment that we needed to be able to have for our congregation and the greater community,” Myers said.

“We do need to move on, and there has to be a moment set aside to be grateful for all of the joy that we have had in 71 years in that building. It was a moment to be able to celebrate all of the wonderful occasions that we have had.”

Volunteers passed out small stones to congregation members to place on the retaining wall of the building as a memorial. The stones will be collected and used in a future project inside the renovated building, Myers said.

“We have had innumerable joyous celebrations here, spanning 71 years,” he said. “We must not permit one day out of 25,993 days to define us, nor outweigh all the good.”

Tree of Life member Mel Solomon, who grew up with the congregation and is involved with the process of reimagining the building, looked forward to the upcoming renovations and praised the community’s resiliency.

“The meaning of it is that we are going to be back together,” he said. “We’re going to be once again enjoying the facility and moving forward with the learning of why this whole event happened to begin with. I think that’s the key.”

Hausman cited the synagogue’s long history and emphasized that the congregation plans to return to the building in the future.

“We’ve been in several different neighborhoods, but we’ve decided this will be our home and we will be back,” he said. “This was just to make sure everyone knows that we are just saying ‘see you later’ to the building — we’re not leaving the building, and we will be back.”

Myers said he intentionally called the ceremony “l’hitraot,” meaning “until we see each other again,” instead of “shalom,” which has a finality to it.

“We’re saying to the rest of the world, ‘evil is not chasing us from our building,’ ” Myers said. “We’ll be back again.”