For many years, my Fourth Of July vacations took me to uniquely American landmarks such as Walt Disney World,Salem,MA, Williamsburg, VA,or the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. I had planned to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland,OH in 2018, but on October 27,2017, after the joy of Rosh Hashanah and solemnity of Yom Kippur had disappeared,the Tree of Life Synagogue and two other temples that shared the same building were invaded by a lone gunman who hated then-President Trump, but also espoused the Anti-Semitic, Anti-Immigrant,in short, ANTI-AMERICAN philosophy that had driven his supporters. Although I love rooting against Pittsburgh like any good New York sports fan, I have friends there and I admire their sense of community and brotherhood. I doubt that it's any coincidence that a preacher named Fred Rogers chose that particular city to expand his ministry of love to children's television (If Boston is the city where everybody knows your name, then Pittsburgh is the city where every kid and former kid knows the residents of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood of Make-Believe, and quite frankly, we can use more Mister Rogerses.) or that city has adopted Philadelphia soul belters Sister Sledge's "We Are Family,' originally played at Pittsburgh Pirates games at the request of star slugger Pops Stargell has become the unofficial city song of the Burgh Town. While reliving the shooting is not an easy prospect, HBO Max's cinema verite documentary "A Tree of Life" (TV-MA for Violence and Language) brings the memory of that tragic chapter in American Jewish history closer than ever. As this movie so beautifully illustrates, this massacre affected everybody, even the Muslim community. (One mustn't-miss highlight is "Healing Tones," an original composition by Hannibal Lokumbe performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and featuring an awesome shofar solo, and i don't just mean that to sound cool. by shooting survivor Audrey Glickman.) We are indeed family, and we need to listen more often to God or our neighborhoods than to give Trump the satisfaction of reelection. Kudos to Shark Mark Cuban and actors Michael Keaton and Billy Porter for getting this movie off the ground and even Olivia herself, Mariska Hargitay,who gets a well-deserved, albeit too brief, shout-out in the credits. On a scale of "Skip It" to "Stream It,"
STREAM IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(Oh, by the way, when I visited Tree Of Life's temporary headquarters on Pittsburgh's Fifth Avenue,
I told the cantor, who officiated the Sabbath service, everybody at Temple Emanu-El in New York was thinking of them, instead of a kind "Thank you" or "Shabbat Shalom," I got a gruff "WHO'S YOUR CANTOR?!?" For the record, it was Mo Glazman who,today,shares cantorial duties with Associate Cantor Sara Anderson and Cantor Emerita Lori Corrsin, I was more than a little taken aback by his apparent Pittsburgh 'tude towards Noo Yawkers. Other than that, and the building security being limited to one freelance security agent and an attack dog, I had a beautiful time that evening.)
Shalom!
Steve
