Aliza Becker: Amy Guterson grew up Orthodox, spent several years as an off-Broadway actress, and then returned to religious life—but she never left the arts behind.

Instead, she found ways to bring the two together. She created a space where Orthodox girls in Chabad could explore both their creativity and their spirituality. And she co-founded a group that brought together Jewish women from observant to secular to write and perform original theater.

That spirit of bringing people together was very much present at Amy’s Shabbat lunch table on October 27th. Jews and non-Jews from different backgrounds were gathered as news of the shooting unfolded.
Six months later, the violence became much more personal. A gunman attacked Chabad of Poway when Amy’s son-in-law’s family was there and a close family friend was killed.

Amy Guterson: My name is Amy Guterson, is my married name. My maiden name is Amy Gordon. I came to Pittsburgh in my early marriage with a baby. 

I grew up in Woodmere, New York Long Island and my family was Modern Orthodox family. I really just knew people who were like me. You'd think, “Boy, it's a bigger place, you're exposed to more.” But I think in bigger places, you tend to stick with your own.

I always had an issue with the Modern Orthodox day schools that I went to. I was a very creative kid and sitting at a desk was not the easiest thing for me, and I'd end up doodling, or my imagination would go off somewhere else. I remember liking whatever music or art they gave us, but it was so minimal.

So, the time I really lived for was summer camp, when we could do plays and even sports. Just getting my body into it as part of it. But I wanted out of high school. I was just so done and so bored. 

At that time, Stern College had an early admissions policy, And they took me a year early. And I could take art classes, and I could take whatever theater classes there were, and be part of a play. And ultimately, I chose what's harder to be as an Orthodox Jew, which is to go into theater. If I had chosen fine arts, I think I would have had an easier time. But easier time isn't what necessarily makes us who we are. 

So yeah, I was the first theater major at Stern College and I took a lot of my courses outside of school, in the West Village, studying acting. 

The world came alive. I kind of felt asleep in school growing up, because nothing really touched who I was. 

And in the years after that, I was not observant at all. And I was an actress off-Broadway. And after about five years, I kind of missed parts of my life. Didn't know quite where I fit in.

I met my husband at a Hanukkah party. He had grown up in Seattle, Washington, in a Reform Jewish community. and came to more observant Judaism when he was about twenty-five years old. Originally through Chabad but then through Or Sameach. And I kind of became religious again, having known how to do it. And I also didn’t feel like I fit back in where I grew up. And then, after our initial first year of marriage, we were looking for a community where we could kind of put together all the parts of ourselves.

And coming to Pittsburgh, to Squirrel Hill particularly, we felt like all these communities are here in one place, and so the parts of us could remain alive rather than obliterating one part to become something else.

So, when we moved here, we were leaning toward the Chabad community. And I was very, very interested in hasidut and learning hasidut, because I felt that those were the pieces that were missing from my Modern Orthodox education. And to come back to observance, I didn't want to drop my knowingness of the world. I wanted to embrace it, and have a sense of purpose that connected to it. 

So I wanted that for my kids too. And being in Squirrel Hill was a great place to do that, to bring up. 

Still bringing them up I have a 15 year old here so that’s still happening here.  so we have four children. 
And really when I became observant again I did not know what I would do with the theater part of myself because I was doing live theater before that.

So keeping the Sabbath on Friday night and Saturday kind of obliterated any kind of theater career. started to direct and certainly to produce and to do playwriting and then ultimately that led me toward screenwriting and filmmaking. So, it kind of propelled me into other creative fields by being deprived of something, it’s kind of the initial feeling of it. but if you did look at it from above—I think it's kind of like a meant to be. The term would be in Hebrew hashgacha pratit, a like a divine providence, of like things I wouldn't have thought of doing. Because I took on the limitations of observance, it made me have to grow more, which is how I try to look at the conflicts that I hold between observance and my creativity. You know, sometimes it's hard to do that, you just see your limitations. But hopefully you grow past them.

So, maybe the second year that we were here, I met Barb, and we talked about starting a Jewish women's theater group And Barb said, "I would like it to be women from across the spectrum of Judaism."

I became the artistic director. Barb was the managing, producing director. And we had this range of Jewish women from their twenties through their fifties, maybe sixties at some point. And we created original theater based on our ideas and our stories as Jewish women. And we got together on Wednesday nights for close to fifteen years. 

And we would literally have meetings where we didn't agree about anything, but we stuck together to create something together. We really loved each other. And so this really became a big part of my community, living in the midst of Jewish women, but who had the differences and who appreciated each other's differences.

I guess I don't like communities where everybody thinks the same thing. That doesn't interest me. It interests me to hear different points of view. And I guess part of what appealed to me as an actor was being able to live different lives and empathize with different people.

And when my older daughter was kind of coming to the time that she wanted to go to seminary as a gap year before college, we were looking around for something that maybe was creative and musical and artistic that could fulfill that part of her. And we were mostly looking at Chabad seminaries, because that's what she was coming out of. And there was nothing like that. This idea was living in me for a while to start a seminary for Orthodox Jewish girls. And as I started to build it, I also was interested in merging the study of hasidut with art.

Hasidut is like a mystically-based take on Torah. If you call Torah or the Bible a spring or water to a person, So Hasidut would be like the oil. Oil is something that seeps in that is essentially part of it. And it gives it a richness, but that richness is a part of it. And kind of without it, the learning of Torah, of Bible, could be very dry and straightforward. But with the learning of it, it deepens it, and it makes it relevant to your life. 

And initially, it was about creating a space for religious Orthodox girls to use all parts of themselves, to develop their artistic selves in a kosher place. 

We're now in year nine. And our girls study creative writing, playwriting and screenwriting, theater, filmmaking, music, art, and photography. And they're coming from mostly Chabad yeshivas—where they haven't developed any of those things. 

And they merge the hasidut, the personal, and express through an art form of their choice. So, we've seen girls have incredible personal growth as artists, certainly as Jewish women, and as individuals.
So, the process has been pretty magical. 

Becker: So, I'd like to pivot now to October 27th, 2018. Can you tell me about your day?

Guterson: Yeah. So, on the Sabbath, I'm not a particularly great synagogue-goer. I'm not a big shul goer. Especially with running the seminary, I've found that it's my day, really, to rest. And I tend to stay home more often than not.

So I was home that morning. My son had gone off to one synagogue, yeshiva, and he was bringing home a couple of friends for lunch. And my husband went off to Chabad of Squirrel Hill. I babysit my granddaughters in the morning, and then I start to prepare some lunch. So I was in my Sabbath bubble of you know not using technology, which I'm used to. And I did hear these sirens and it was like, “Wow, something big,” because it went on and on for quite a while. But I, I had no clue.  

So, I just went on my Sabbath morning. And my son and his two friends came in, and it was like an hour past when they should have been home. And he said, “You know, there's been a shooting.It was in one of the shuls, so we were in lockdown. It took me a few minutes to even register what he was saying. And I'm trying to wonder why I didn't get like more panicked, because if I had thought that it was an Orthodox synagogue, it would have been full of children running around. I remembered that hitting me. I'm sure it happens in other synagogues, too, but this is in a big way in Orthodox synagogues.

So, after that my two graduates came to visit. Then I was a little worried, waiting for my husband to get home, because it took him much longer to get home. And I remember giving him a big hug in front of everybody, which I don't usually do in front of these kids and my graduates. And it didn't matter. I was like, “I'm giving you a hug. I'm just relieved you're here.” 

By then, he had information because all the synagogues were on lockdown, as were they at Chabad of Squirrel Hill. And they had heard that it was Tree of Life. So, we sat down. I think when my son came home he said eight people were shot. And this is totally like word of mouth. You're not getting on the phone, so it's whatever they heard in their lockdowns that they were sharing. So it probably is a very different existence than many people, who could get on their phone and check the media, even though the media may not know yet as well.

So we sat down to our Shabbos lunch. And Shabbos is kind of an island of peace and doing things differently. And It was very strange to know that all that was going on out there in the Shabbos morning, and yet kind of creating our typical Shabbos peace of sitting at the table, not having technology. The kids are at the table. My grandkids were at the table. Having these girls come in, my son with his friends. All different ages around our big table, and having a big lunch.

And as we sat down, maybe a few minutes later, my doorbell rang. I go to the door, and I see my friend Kim, who is an old friend of mine from acting school. She's not Jewish. 

So, she's at the door, and she's there with her puppy. And she's been over for Shabbos meals before a lot. We're very close. And she came in, and she gave me a huge hug, and she said, "How are all of you?" She came to be a part of us and to take care of us. And I just remember being so grateful for her being there and coming to worry about us. And she wanted to be with us.

And so, as we have often did, she sat down with us at our Shabbos table. She had her phone right there, and she was checking the news for us.

And so not only that, she asked to do me a favor. But she called my mother, who was in Israel at the time, so the Sabbath would have been over there, but she might have heard about the shooting. So she left a message on my mother's machine that we're all okay. And she did the same for the girls who were away from home. And she kept checking on everything. 

About twenty minutes later, after being at the Shabbos table together, holding both the tragedy of what was happening around us plus the Shabbos peace, where we felt like, well, doing this is having God in our life, the doorbell rings again. 

I have glass at my door, but I don't know who this guy is, and today I'm not going to open the door for someone I don't know. I said, "Hi," through the door. He said, "Hi. I was sent by Max's brother to see if he's okay." Max is my son-in-law, and his brother doesn't keep the Sabbath in the same way. He sent this person that he didn't even know directly to come and check up. 

So, as soon as he said that, that was the password, I opened up the door. We also invited him to sit at our Sabbath table. 

My husband always talks about the parshah, where we live with the parshah, find life lessons for it. The topics were, scarily enough: Aḳedat Yitzchaḳ, the Binding of Isaac, or the kind of giving as a sacrifice. And then the other piece that was very resonant was the inviting in of guests, that Abraham invited the angels in. So that those were the themes that we talked about and shared.And our table expanded with these two additions. 

And I have to say there was something special at that table that day. 

I mean the fact that not everybody knew each other. There were different age groups. There were non-Jews. I mean somebody who I'm very close to and somebody who I just met.

And it kind of in a way embodied what Shabbos, I think, is supposed to be. Obviously, not in the face of terror all the time, but giving you an island of peace. It seemed to raise it up, to give it an aliyah of awareness, certainly. 

Anyways, as soon as Shabbos is over, everybody gets their phones and we called people, and we posted on Facebook, “We're safe,” to friends who lived elsewhere.

And then we started to see other people's posts and to see more of what had happened specifically. 
I remember walking around town. People would want to come over and hug us. People I don't know, in the street you know.

I think people from where I come from don't think about Pittsburgh, or they think well, New York's the center of the universe kind of attitude. And feeling like all of a sudden we were being looked at. We were. We were in the news everywhere, and this being the biggest shooting of Jewish people anywhere in the US. And we were in the spotlight. There is a sense of purpose with that.

And I was feeling kind of blah about Pittsburgh, honestly, before the shooting. I really was aching to move. And there was something about it happening that grounded me back here, and that made me say, “In the face of this tragedy, that there's a sense of good and goodness that's coming out of it and that needs to be shown to the world.” And Squirrel Hill in particular is this place that can shine its light out in some way. We have to get better, too. But there's something in our coexistence and our love for each other that's unique. 

And so, I felt the specialness of this place again. And that was really the overwhelming thing for me. 

I have to tell you, when the growing antisemitism really hit me was not during the shooting, because I was looking at Pittsburgh, and I was too close to it. 

We went away with our family to a Passover program in Connecticut. And at the end of Passover, my son-in-law turned on his phone, and again, waiting until the end of the holiday. And he is from San Diego. And he saw what happened in Poway. And his whole family was in that synagogue during the shooting. 

And Lori, who was the woman who was shot—she was quite a close family friend. And then his father, brother, and sisters were in the synagogue during the shooting. And so this really hit home in a whole other way.  And this, to our family, was almost more direct, in terms of family connection. 

And after that, I think the growing antisemitism really hit me. And that's when I had a hard time in a different way.

I like to be focused on positivity and healing., so before that, I was thinking creatively, as I was saying, from kind of an above point of view. Like we can't see God's point of view, and see how the bad works with the good. We're kind of taught that everything is for good. How do you say that? and You certainly can't say that to people that are in the bad. And you don't want to say it, because it feels bad to us, it is bad to us. I don't want to say, “Oh, God is all good.”and I do think that there's a bigger picture, though, that we can't know. In the same way that we can find some good after something terrible has happened, that we find good in our in our community, and that we find good in people.

And after Poway, it was harder. I find it hard to go on Facebook, where I get a lot of my news information, unfortunately, because I can’t I really— can't even look at the news anymore. But seeing growing antisemitism on all sides is is a really hard thing.

But when I hear or read somebody write something so antisemitic, and talk about Jews in that way, I'm just shocked at the ugliness in the world, and the why it's focused on Jews. And I know there are trappings that any one community can express. Like they talk about Jews and wealth or Jews being in power.

And I'm like, “That's not what we're about. Sometimes we're not perfect, and we express ourselves in negative ways to the world.” But we need to be able to share. I don't know, are they waiting for us to share something we're not sharing? Is that why there's antisemitism? it really baffles me. But maybe there's something more that we need to be doing or being.

But I do know we have to be fully ourselves as Jews, not say we're sorry for being Jews. And that's every part of my being and upbringing, in every section of my life, whether I was religious or not religious, it's all been defining who I am as a whole person and as a Jew. And that, I lead with foremost in my life. 

I've always learned that as a Jew my job is to bring light to the world. You know as a Jewish people, we're supposed to be a light to the nations. And I guess that could be taken out of fear in the opposite way, but I really don't understand it. And I often ask, “God, what are you trying to tell us? Is there something we should be doing?” 

It's a miracle that we're here as a Jewish people. It's absolutely miraculous. It's that Mark Twain quote, which I don't know offhand but you know,  “How have the Jews survived? Civilizations have died all around us, and how are we still here?” And then knowing that this is a world where we know things, we can just look on the Internet. Why do you hate us? What's so hateable? Why do we have to be the scapegoat? Shouldn't you be looking at yourself, and growing yourself?”

My place to go and kind of to deal with this was to go higher up. 

I wish us all safety and wellness, and may the world finally understand or see the goodness in the Jewish people, and not, not this negativity which really isn't what we're about. And that we all grow into this beauty and oneness.