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October 27th is a podcast that tells the story of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting through the voices of the local community.
Each episode introduces us to the story of a person who experienced the synagogue shooting and its aftermath: survivors and family members of those who were killed, Jewish community members, and their non-Jewish neighbors.
October 27th is adapted from Meanings of October 27th, an oral history project that interviewed over 100 Pittsburghers about their life stories and reflections on the shooting.
Visit the oral history archive: https://october27archive.org/oral-histories
Donate to support this project: https://bardian.bard.edu/register/meanings
I’m Noah Schoen, and I’m Aliza Becker, and this is October 27th, a podcast about the October 27th, 2018 synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.
Aliza and I co-founded an oral history project that recorded over 100 interviews with local Jews and non-Jews about their life stories and reflections on the shooting. Our interviewees taught us so much, and we’ve created this podcast to share their insights with you.
This is October 27th.
Growing up in Squirrel Hill, I had some interaction with Pittsburgh’s Black communities, but if I’m being honest, it wasn’t much. It wasn’t until I returned here as an adult that I realized my experience was the product of this city’s profound segregation. And there is perhaps nobody who has taught me more about Pittsburgh racism than Jasiri X.
As a teenager, Jasiri moved from a Black community on Chicago’s South Side to Monroeville, a mostly white suburb east of Pittsburgh.
It was there where he faced overt racism for the first time and learned to channel the anger and isolation he felt into hip-hop. These experiences led him to become the co-founder and CEO of 1Hood Media, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit whose mission is to build liberated communities through art, education, and social justice.
It wasn’t until Jasiri was an adult that he got to know Jewish people. His path to understanding antisemitism, when to him Jews had always seemed just like other white people, is profound. His vision is of a world where Stronger than Hate, the motto adopted by the city after the synagogue shooting, applies to all Pittsburghers.
Jasiri X: My name is Jasiri X. I'm a hip-hop artist and activist. I am one of the founding members of an organization called 1Hood and a co-founder of 1Hood Media.
I'm originally from the South Side of Chicago. And right as I was coming into high school, my mother moved us from the South Side of Chicago to a suburb of Pittsburgh called Monroeville.
My mother raised me socially conscious. My given name is Jasiri. That's Swahili. I didn't really understand the struggle, kind of like the civil rights movement, until I got to Monroeville and went from a almost hundred percent Black environment to almost a hundred percent White environment, and was called a nigger you know to my face, and so for me, Pittsburgh kind of introduced me, or the Pittsburgh area, to like racism.
We talk about like A Tale of Two Cities, but if you're a White person in Pittsburgh, you have a totally different experience. Particularly, you know, in the last five to seven years, Pittsburgh has become gentrified. You know, I live in a neighborhood called East Liberty. My street was a hundred percent Black. Now it's about fifty-fifty and kind of saw the neighborhood change in a way, who was welcoming to White people and unwelcoming to Black people.
One of the things that I thought was one of the best descriptions of Pittsburgh was a writer named Damon Young. He calls Pittsburgh “White Wakanda.” And I thought like, “Yo, that might be the greatest description of Pittsburgh.”
Wakanda was from the movie Black Panther and it was like paradise for the Black people that was protected and anything they wanted to do they could do there. It’s a place where like as a white person would come here and it’s like mad stuff to do and you have fun and it’s kind of like you’re accepted, and if you’re a Black person you come here and you’re like well where is the Black cultural center of Pittsburgh There is none. Is there like a Black middle class? No. If you're in a Black neighborhood in Pittsburgh, it's going to be a poor neighborhood.
You know, I saw Dr. Larry Davis, who is the dean emeritus at Pitt School of Race and Social Problems. He said that sixty-two percent of Black children five and under are in poverty in Pittsburgh. That just blew my mind. Sixty-two percent. For White children, I think it's eighteen. You know, as a Black person Pittsburgh is a totally different experience and it’s definitely, it’s not Wakanda.
Sometimes I think people have a tendency to look at Black people and be like, “Well, what's wrong with them? Why can't they just do like what the rest of us did? My parents came here with nothing.” And it’s like, “Yeah, but your parents came with nothing but we had debt. Not only did we have debt, like when things like the G.I. Bill and these economic stimulus packages that came to White America, we were denied them.
You know, we were like intentionally prevented from getting loans and getting access to these wealth-building steps that other communities got.” You don't want to get into like “the oppression Olympics.” But it's understanding that like—what we went through was like a total stripping away of our cultural identity.
And I say that specifically to Jewish people, because the cultural identity of Jewish people is very strong. But we were completely stripped of our culture, down to the names, which is, like I said, my mom wanting to name me an African name to kind of connect me to a place and a culture.
We're not the poorest working-class Black community in the nation, because we're dumb or we don't want to work. It's a reason for that. So, there's barriers in Pittsburgh that's preventing Black people from having access to the very things that will put us in a position where we could be on par with other communities.
It's always a struggle against like racism and White supremacy—a daily struggle—and at times you question, “Would it be easier if I went to a place where there's more people that look like me?”
But it's also a city that, you know, I've gotten a lot of support as an artist. It's the city where we started our organization 1Hood. And this is where I live. This is where, you know, I'm raising my family. This is where I'm doing my art and activism. I'm here.
Noah Schoen: So, you mentioned that, after you moved to Monroeville, you started to experience a lot of racism. What did that look like?
X: My first time at Monroeville Mall—which was like the place to be—and I just remember being with my mom and my sister, and was called a nigger and it was like a drunk White guy. Or you know going to school and being singled out —you know and I'm relatively light-skinned, but still, it was kind of like, you know, you're Black, and whether it was snide comments or being overlooked.
So, being from the South Side of Chicago, my initial response was to fight. And my mother made it clear, getting suspended was something that can go on my permanent record, and I might not get into college. My mother graduated valedictorian from her college. She was a nuclear engineer, so for my mother, it was like you get these degrees and that was like the key to the future. And so not being able to fight was kind of like, “How do I deal with this?” So that's kind of how I got into activism. And we started a Black club at Gateway.
We had one Black teacher who taught typing, and he was kind of our teacher person that we were able to talk to, and we got the school to teach a Black history class, and, you know, just did a variety of things that were related to protests. I mean, there was a time where some cheerleader was like, "Martin Luther King didn't deserve a holiday." So at the game, when the cheerleaders came out, we all like stood up and turned our backs. You know, stuff like that. You know what I’m saying.
Like dealing with what they sometimes call now microaggressions or, you know, just folks being outright racist to you in your face. And so Pittsburgh, I always tell people, is an overtly racist place. It's not a covertly or subtly racist place. It's right in your face racism. And so you have to learn how to navigate it or leave.
Schoen: You mentioned that you're a musician and activist. And I'm wondering what about the music is nourishing and important for you?
X: For me, music was like a way I could express my frustrations. Some people have a diary or a journal. I was able to find hip-hop music and use it as an outlet for things that I was going through. I mean you know I moved here and was experiencing a level of oppression And you almost kind of have two choices when you're Black and you come into like a predominantly White environment. It’s like either I'm going to resist, or I'm going to assimilate. And if I didn't have hip-hop, hip-hop music, hip-hop culture, I probably would have assimilated. But it was like the resistance in hip-hop, that was like, “No, this is mine.” There's an aspect in it of non-conformity, I guess you would say.
And so I began to rap about what I was going through. You know, I couldn't rap about being on the block. I'm in Monroeville. So I began to rap about the issues that I have as a young Black man in this kind of like White environment. So it was like therapeutic for me to write about these things that bothered me. And a lot of the music that I write and that resonates is this feeling of like, “This is wrong, and like I want to say something about it. I want to take a stance about it.” And so that's what it's become to me, like getting something off of my chest that maybe if I held onto I might do something a little bit less constructive, maybe something destructive.
Schoen: Did you have any relationships with Jews in Chicago or in Pittsburgh?
X: When I first came here my first friends were Indian. But you know we were all victims of oppression, so we had that in common. Then I found a Black community inside of Monroeville called Garden City. That’s where kind of like the Black people in Monroeville live. So that was kind of my community, not that I didn’t have friends that were White, but the people I mostly gravitated to were you know Black people like myself.
If I did have relationships with Jews, I didn't know. And I kind of saw things very black and white. It was Black people and White people. So, I didn't break people down into like their ethnicities. And so if there were Jewish students or a Jewish student group at Gateway, I didn’t interact with them, and I didn't have a friend who like I went to his house and was like oh, “He's a different kind of type of White student.
And so, the Jewish people that I know like, they’re hip hop. I didn’t necessarily look at them as like Jewish. It’’s like he’s part of our hip-hop community in Pittsburgh, and we have an affinity and affiliation with one another because it’s a small place and we’re a small community. So outside of that community, and like Jewish people that I might have known personally or I knew Jewish people in Pittsburgh just one on one relationships with folks.
When I came into activism and particularly as I emerged as a rapper who was doing political music and that was the first time where it was like, “Oh this is a community of progressive Jews that I was invited to be a part of,” which I was like at first a little bit taken aback, because it was like everybody was kind of progressive politically, so I kind of felt like everybody was on the same team. But it was like a lot of arguing.
And I didn't know that was a thing to the point where then I started to think, “Well, maybe they're not friendly.” But it was like, “Nah, this is, we're friends. It was just kind of like, how we get down.
I remember thinking like, like as Black people, you might fall out as friends, you know what I’m saying. But the ability to kind of argue, but we're still cool, and then even more so can show like a unified front outside of that space. I just thought that was really unique and different.
Now, I’m like actually in a community of Jewish people and maybe initially you think everybody who Jewish has like a certain religious thinking and then seeing like some folks are like secular. They identify as Jewish but don't necessarily go to the synagogue all the time or feel the need to like religiously identify. It's like more cultural thing.
When we went to dinner, and I was like, “Wait a second, who's eating pork? You know what I’m saying and it’s just like, we are. And I remember kind of thinking, “Oh. Okay. There's different ideologies, even religiously which, of course, as Black people you understand, because it's like so many different forms of like Christianity, and each takes on a different way of worshiping.
Schoen: Did Squirrel Hill feel like a White space? Did it have any differences to it?
Yah, I mean to me, Squirrel Hill was a White place. To me, Jewish people were White. Of course, I know, like the Bible and Jerusalem and all that. But I would go to Squirrel Hill and I'd be like, “This is White people.” I didn't put White people in different categories. I didn't expect a different treatment from like a White Jew than a White Italian. Or you know what I’m saying. To me, it was just like, it's White people, and I will get a certain response from White people in general.
Schoen: Has that understanding been changing for you? Or maybe not. And If so, how and if not, why not?
X: Yah, well I think we're at this moment where, clearly, Jewish people are being singled out. I mean It's not like White supremacists are calling out Irish folks or Italian folks, Polish people. They're not. Jewish people are like looked at in the minds of these White supremacists, as like not White, and somehow wanting to control the other races for whatever nefarious sense. I don’t, I can't even really understand it.
And so, I think particularly with what happened here in Pittsburgh, seeing like actual violence. And then what's continued to take place, particularly at like Jewish places of worship.
It's something that caused me to say, “Okay, well, clearly you know this is different. These White supremacists are treating Jewish people as like, they're not a part of our tribe.
I always considered Arabs as White. And then 9/11 happened, and all of a sudden, they weren't White anymore. You know what I’m saying? It was kind of like they were this different people, and they were like somehow, because of their Arabness, or because they're Muslim, they weren't American enough.
And it's weird to see this happening with the Jewish community, in the sense of like these White supremacists feeling like the Jewish people aren't White enough or American enough to qualify to go under their White flag or however their thinking is.
And so, you know, we saw real lives being taken here in Pittsburgh. We saw a community come under attack, for the only reason other than this was a synagogue looking at the values of the Jewish tradition and trying to give back to refugees and folks that just came to Pittsburgh. And because of that, they were deemed like evil, and, you know, some dude went in there and shot it up. And then it’s like if that's the reason, then this is some folks that I need to build some solidarity with, because we've been under attack, and maybe we can offer some tips or some support or some allyship.
Schoen: We're starting to talk about October 27th and I'm wondering if you could just tell me about what that day was like for you.
I'm on social media a lot, I went on Twitter and seeing like there was a shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and I think the first thing is like, that’s pretty close to where I am. My youngest son was doing physical therapy at a place like right next to Tree of Life. You start to think about your own safety. Like am I, am I safe? A mass shooting is taking place, and it's close to where I am. What's happening? As a Black person I think back to Charleston, South Carolina, and that church shooting.
And then it's the anger. For me, it's like, you got an AR-15 and then you go to the most vulnerable people that you can. And I always wonder about that mentality of a person that would be so fearful that you have this gun for war, which you don't go to a place where you could actually get some type of resistance. You find a group of old Jewish people going to a synagogue.
I don't want to be dismissive of them. But a ninety-year-old woman? I mean, what is she going to do? And then you find out why he did it, you know the history of like White mass shooters. And then you start thinking about the rhetoric of Donald Trump and Charlottesville and you start kind of connecting the dots to all this White supremacist stuff in these chat rooms, on these boards, spewing racist rhetoric towards one another. Like this is the time that we're in right now.
And then, as you know, it’s the emotions of that day went from all of those things to like, like okay, well let me reach out to some folks that I know. Can I help? What do folks need? Let me be of assistance.
We went to the protests. And so this is kind of how this kind of solidarity worked. Because I was doing work with her name is Yael Silk. She was Jewish, and I didn’t know that she was kind of a part of this group called Bend the Arc.
We went and supported and just wanting to be in a space with them in solidarity, because there were a lot of progressive Jewish folks that stood with us and protested when we were trying to get this officer who kill Antwon Rose charged with his murder throughout the summer. And so, it was like, “You came in solidarity with us. We're going to come and show solidarity with you.” And, you know, I just remember going, and kind of like I'm here to just serve the community in whatever way I can.
But, you know, Yael was able also to kind of help me navigate locally and connected me with some folks to have conversations with, and we ended up establishing like positive relationship. And so I learned a lot more—a lot more—about the Jewish community like through those conversations and also realized l that I held certain misconceptions. So it was very much a moment for me to like do some self-reflection. And since then, I mean, we’ve continued to build specifically with Bend the Arc Pittsburgh. And so, we have those relationships still to this day.
Schoen: What are some of the things that you've learned from all of this that you're still thinking about and wrestling with?
I remember having an initial conversation and the topic of Israel was brought up. And, you know, I visited Israel and Palestine in 2014 and did a song called "Checkpoint" about my experience. And so when it came up, I just wanted to be transparent, to say, "Hey, just to let you all know. I did this song." They were like, "Yeah, we know. We googled you. Like, “We saw the song." But it was one of the guys said, "Let's operate on the assumption like none of us want to have checkpoints. That's not something that we desire." Support of Israel doesn't mean like you're in agreement with everything that government officials do.
And it was kind of one of the moments like, “Oh. Why didn't I see that?”
You know, the word Zionism, was like, yo, like if you stood up in like a meeting and was like, “I'm a Zionist,” it was like, wait, hold up. It was like akin to like White supremacist, in my mind, you using this terminology. But to then have a Jewish person say, “We see this as just something that we want our own state —this is how we're looking at the word. And I remember thinking like how the terminology and the words can become a barrier.
I remember having a conversation about the term "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." And saying like as a Jewish person, we see this as meaning like you're going to eliminate the state of Israel. Because if you're saying, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” you're saying like Palestine is going to exist from the river to sea and there will be no Israel.
I remember thinking like, I didn't see it like that. I just saw it as a free Palestinian people. I was like, “Man, I done chanted that hundreds of times." I'm thinking one thing, and somebody else is hearing me chant this and thinking that I want the elimination of Israel period.
I'm thinking of it like, everybody's free to kind of do what they want to do, but coexisting together. And It was just one of them moments that I was like, “Language is catching us up.”
I never looked really at the history of the Jewish experience in the world, not even just in the United States, and like every place you go being persecuted. And having to then like look for signs. And so being very, very sensitive to language. To me, that makes a thousand percent sense.
If that was my experience as collectively as a people, I’m going to be super fucking vigilant, because like the Holocaust isn't the only time that's happened. It's happened historically in all of these different times. and so you got to be like watchful. And I think like for a Black person, my life's been about being dehumanized. You know what I’m saying, so like in my mind I might be over here looking like that's not a big deal because I'm looking at it through my experience—my lived experience and my people's experience and not somebody else's. And so, I've had some of those moments where I was like, “Oh, Okay.”
Part of why we continue to do this solidarity is so we can hopefully find a common language, or can we find ways where we can get past these things where if somebody says something or does something, it doesn't descend into like, “You're anti-Black or antisemitic.” Like we could actually figure out a way where we can kind of work together through those type of things and find like what does real solidarity and allyship look like beyond what happened October 27th. Can we build it strong enough where we don't have to repeat these events? Because that's the thing, that's what we're working towards.
Schoen: The last question I wanted to ask you is just, what have you taken from all of this that you want to share with future generations?
X: A lot of people's lives changed on October 27th of last year. I think as a city, it was a lot to process. You know, I just did a song called "Purple Roses." And the last line, I said, "Stronger than hate—wait, unless a Black dream was the casualty."
And I think even that, although it was like a powerful symbol—stronger than hate—it stung as a Black person to see. It's like seeing something that you wish was true, but you know it doesn't apply to you. It’s like, “Wow, that's a powerful, powerful concept. I wish that applied to me.”
These are some of the things that kind of began this solidarity work of folks really seeing like how different the Jewish community were treated. I think there's a tendency for Black people to look at the wave of support and love that the Jewish community got after October 27th and be mad.
I would kind of look at it in a different way.
You know, that's how every community should be treated. Every community should feel a wave of love, support, compassion, access to financial resources in the wake of any tragedy. And so, the fact that other communities don't get that treatment, that's not Jewish community's fault. Is that it become a standard, going forward.
I’m more than that interested in finding what real solidarity looks like to like embrace the cultural differences but still see each other as connected, see each other in some ways as brothers or sisters or family.
Can we do that? What are the barriers that's preventing us to do that? So, that’s what I’ll be continuing to try to work towards. If any good can come out of this, it could be finding real allyship amongst groups that are under attack right now by White supremacy and white nationalism.
October 27th is written and hosted by Aliza Becker and Noah Schoen, and it’s produced and edited by Carly Rubin. We get administrative support from Tina Stanton Gonzalez of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. Our music is from Blue Dot Sessions and our closing theme is Tree of Life by Nefesh Mountain. If you want to support our work and the creation of more episodes like this one, you can make a donation at October27podcast.org where you’ll also find episode transcripts, a link to this full unedited interview, and more.
That’s October27podcast.org.
And lastly, thank you to all of the amazing Pittsburghers who shared their stories for the Meanings of October 27th Oral History Project.We’re so grateful for your trust and your generosity.