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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.
On August 1st, 2019, Aliza and I flew into Pittsburgh to record the first interviews of our oral history project. I was new to oral history, and a bit nervous. But after watching Aliza record with a few people, I drove myself to the Jewish Association on Aging senior living apartments to interview Reva Simon, aleha hashalom.
Reva was a member of New Light, a haimish Conservative shul which rented space from Tree of Life and lost three of its members during the synagogue shooting. At the time of our interview, cancer was sapping her energy, so I returned to her apartment several times to record in 30-minute sessions.
Somehow, despite my nervousness and her illness, we managed to get comfortable with each other. The resulting interview captured something of Reva’s essential qualities: her humor, her directness, and her toughness. Recording with her is one of my most cherished memories from the oral history project.
Be sure to listen to the end to hear Reva read Post-Mid-Life Crisis, her original poem.
Reva Simon: I am Reva Simon. I live at Riverview Towers in Squirrel Hill. I'm born and raised in Pittsburgh, and I'm 90 years old. That's a long time.
Noah Schoen: When did your family first move to Pittsburgh?
Simon: My parents came here from Europe, from Russia, and they settled in Pittsburgh in the Hill District, which was where a lot of the immigrants started out and from then they moved on.
Schoen: Do you know why your family decided to move to the United States?
Simon: Yes. The pogroms in Russia. It was very hard for my parents. They told me. They told me lots of stories. In fact, during the Holocaust, the rest of the family didn't make it. So, there’s my mother, father; an aunt and an uncle moved here as well. They brought them over, and a few distant relatives, but that was it.
My father came from a little shtetl in Russia. It was called Plyskiv. It no longer exists. His family was afraid he would be conscripted into the army. This was like 1912. And he wanted to leave Plyskiv, but you had to have a sponsor. And a lot of the Pliskovers were leaving and each one would sponsor the other one, and they all ended up in Pittsburgh.
Now, my mother came from a town in Europe and it still exists, it's called Uman. U-M-A-N. And my mother came from a family of ten children, so they saved up money, and they got a sponsor here by the name of Morris who was somehow distantly related to them. And she was able to send them a ticket. And that's how my mother ended up in Pittsburgh.
My parents didn't meet until each one moved here. They were very involved in Zionist organizations and that's how they met. My father was an avid Labor Zionist; my mother belonged to Pioneer Women.
I am the third child. There were four of us. So there was my older sister, who is a hundred years old and still living and my brother, and a younger sister, gone.
My mother worked in a men's pants factory doing piecework, and my father had a little cart, and he went door-to-door selling brooms and that's how he got his start. But he did pretty well.
They moved from the Hill District to East End, when my older brother and sister were about 10 years old. and that's where we grew up until I was in my teens.
My family moved to Squirrel Hill when I was 14 years old. So, I ended up at Taylor Allderdice High School.
Schoen: What were some of the differences between East End and Squirrel Hill?
Simon: Well, East End was a pretty much mixed neighborhood. There were a lot of Jews, a lot of Jewish businesses, a lot of kosher butcher shops and bakeries. Where I lived in East End was hard because it was a non-Jewish neighborhood. They were very antisemitic. And my older brother and my older sister were constantly coming home with bloody noses, beat up, because the kids would call them “dirty Jews'' and “Christ-killers,” and all names. By the time I came along, which was like eight years later, it wasn't, but I still got a lot of the taunting and a lot of the teasing.
Schoen: What would your parents do?
Simon: My parents didn't do much, they used to lament and say, "We've got to get out of here." They talked about it a lot. My parents never were aggressive or went out to fight with the neighbors. That wasn't their style. So they just sort of took it on the jaw. And like I said, we moved as soon as they could make arrangements to move to a different neighborhood.
It was like pulling myself away when we moved to Squirrel Hill.
And I was going to one high school, Peabody High School, and I had to transfer to Allderdice, and it was very traumatic, because all my friends were from the old neighborhood in the old school. When we moved to Squirrel Hill, it was more upscale Jewish. There were a lot of cliques and groups that were already there when I moved there. So, I had to jump in and make my own way, made my own friends. And I did. And I wasn't as happy there as I was at the old school, because I was used to it. But Allerdice was okay.
Schoen: Who were your friends that you made at Allderdice when you switched? Were they Jewish? What were they like?
Simon: Oh, they were all Jewish. I had no non-Jewish friends. They were all Jewish. Some of them were transplants, as well, like myself, from East End, and we lived in the neighborhood and we kind of meshed together, because we were individuals who had moved and didn't know anybody else, so we were together. I had friends throughout my years at Allderdice I stuck with.
I graduated from Taylor Allderdice in 1947 and then I went for two years to Pitt.
I got married, had a family, and then after my family was grown. I went back to University of Pittsburgh, got my degree and I was 52 years old when I graduated Pitt. So, that's my story. Part of my story. What else?
Schoen: Could you tell me more about what it was like being Jewish growing up?
Simon: We spoke mostly Yiddish at home.
My father used to make me sit down with him and read the Jewish paper. The Forward, it's still published but I don't think it's published in Yiddish and there was a “Dear Abby” section called a “Bintel Brief.” People wanted questions answered about their marital experiences and problems that they had. And my father would sit me down, knock on the table, and say, “lain,” which means read. I'd say, “Oh, Pa, please, I don't want to.” And my father said, “Believe me, someday you'll thank me for this.” And I do! I did, and I do. So, there you go.
Schoen: Why do you thank him?
Simon: Because it takes me back to my childhood and growing up and hearing Yiddish spoken in the house all the time. And it’s just a warm feeling that I have for the language.
I say to my children, I say, “Sometimes you can't use an English word to describe something as well as a Yiddish word. A Yiddish word fits!”
Like, we were talking about a politician and I said to my daughter, “He's a bulvan!” Do you know what a bulvan is? It's a coarse, rotten person, but I can't think of the word in English, I think the Yiddish word!
Schoen: Could you tell me about Squirrel Hill, what it was like when you first moved there, and today?
Simon: When I first moved to Squirrel Hill, my father became very involved with a little synagogue called Young People's Synagogue. It was very Orthodox and our family went there pretty often. My father had to work, but he used to take time on Saturdays to go to shul.
I belong to New Light, which was a little synagogue, Conservative. It was very close-knit, and we became very good friends with most of the people there. Small, small synagogue. And we rented from the Tree of Life, and they were glad to have us. It was very nice, very nice people. And we had a nice rabbi. That's where I spent about the last 25, 30 years at New Light.
I still keep kosher, I try to be as observant as I can to Jewish holidays.
This building where I live, meals are kosher. That’s important to me. I feel comfortable here for that reason. I'm among my own.
Schoen: So now we're going to pivot to the events of October 27th. Can you tell me about that day?
Simon: Yes. I don't always go to services on Saturday morning, because the services are longer and it was hard for me to sit that long. However, I had yahrzeit for my husband, and I decided to go to shul that Saturday.
Normally, New Light starts its services around 9:15, but I didn't leave the house until that time. And I was driving. As I got closer into where the New Light Synagogue is, I saw armored cars and sirens and and traffic was being held up.
My first thought was, "There must have been a terrible accident." And as they kept coming, I started thinking, “Maybe it's a fire.” But as I got closer to the shul, they had all the streets cordoned off. Even the buses, they had stopped.
An officer came to the car window and told me to turn around and go back, no details. But on my way back, I had to go by the Carnegie Library, and they motioned me to pull in the lot there. So I went upstairs and I asked the librarian, "What's going on?" She said there's an active shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue, and that's how I found out what was happening. I didn't find out til later that three of our congregants who are very active in the synagogue were among the victims. They were all good friends of mine, and I was never the same afterwards.
Dan Stein was one of the ones that did everything you asked him to do. He was president of the Men's Club.
Richard Gottfried was a dentist, and I knew him because I worked at the dental school at Pitt, and he was one of the students. So, we went way back. I knew both he and his wife were dental students, and they credit me with matching them up. I really wasn't, it was just a coincidence. I had them work on a project and that's how they met.
The other one was Mel Wax. Mel Wax was a funny guy. He was always so friendly and good. And he took care of services when the rabbi wasn't there.
So, that's the story of what happened. Terrible, terrible!
I was in shock, and of course, the news reports on the radio was all about the shootings, so I was glued to the TV. I just remember that, I just was in shock and couldn't believe it. And then afterwards were the funerals and the visitations and the crying, and the… It was just, just unbelievable. Unbelievable!
New Light has less than a hundred members. It's a very close-knit little shul. And when something happens, it touches everybody there.
The shul couldn't stay at Tree of Life, so they moved to Beth Shalom. I went to services a few Friday nights later on, and I'd look around, look around. And not only were there some strange faces that decided to come, but some of the familiar faces were not there anymore.
It was so traumatic and unbelievable. They say “life goes on”, but it's not the same.
Schoen: I have some questions now reflecting on the impact of October 27th. What impact has it had on you as a Jew?
Simon: First of all, the shooter—they found out was a White supremacist. I realize he's one of many, so this wasn't a singular event. And God forbid, I don't know what's in the future. So that's, that’s what I worry about.
Schoen: Has it had an impact on your belief in God?
Simon: No. No. I can't explain why not. But no, I still am with my belief in God, And I reason that there must have been an explanation. There must be something for the good that this will end up. But it has colored my life. It has.
Schoen: Has it impacted how you understand antisemitism?
Simon: No, because I still can't understand antisemitism: where it comes from, why these people hate us like that. Antisemitism is there, and it's all around us, even if it's not spoken. It's there. And why? I don't know why. They just hate us. I've come across it in my life, and it's there.
Schoen: How did the synagogue shooting affect your sense of safety?
Simon: Always looking over my shoulder. And when I enter not only the synagogue but when I ‘ve gone anywhere, I tend to look over my shoulder and wonder, "Is this okay? Is this okay? Who is that standing over there?" You have a sense, not a sense of safety, but a sense of fear, if everything's okay.
They say if you suspect something you should report it, but what can you say you suspect you see somebody standing somewhere. He doesn't look suspicious, but who knows, who knows what can happen? So he might have a concealed weapon and is looking for a nice crowd to shoot up. Who knows?
Schoen: What has helped you to carry on since October 27th?
Simon: It hasn't been easy, but I have family. I have friends. I receive calls from the synagogue members from time to time, because I'm not able to go as often as I used to. And that has kept me going.
Schoen: How do you want the synagogue shooting to be remembered?
Simon: It can never be wiped out or forgotten.
It's a day that will live in infamy, as they said. Every time you hear October 27th, it strikes a note. However, I can't say anything is going to be different. There will always be that fear. There will always be that sadness and the memories of people. Everybody will connect October 27th with that day.
Schoen: What have you learned from all of this that you would like to share with future generations?
Simon: Hopefully I'm wrong, but there's always the fear that you're never safe. You never know what's coming at you. Life is full of bad surprises. Life goes on, but it's never good always. Always a fear. It has happened again, but in other places, and I feel that it will continue to happen.
Schoen: As we come to the end of this interview, I'm remembering you said to me, "The Jewish is there," and then you tapped your head and you said, "It's hiding, but it's there." What did you mean by that?
Simon: Some of the expressions never leave you. And when I say it’s there. I'm 90 years old, and I can go back to my early, early days and still remember things that my parents said or their friends said. And it comes back to you. You think you've forgotten, but you haven't forgotten. It's still there.
I remember my father when I was maybe, maybe seven, eight years old, would take me over to the JCC in the Hill District, which was called the Irene Kaufmann Settlement. And it was a wonderful place. There was a swimming pool. There were always activities. bBut my father used to take me there because they gave the kids chocolate milk and graham crackers. And that was a big deal. See! Look, I remember that. Isn't that crazy? That's one of my earliest memories.
And I also remember my father used to take me down to Fifth Avenue, which is like a wholesale clothing place. He used to take me to a restaurant, called,I think it was Weinstein's down there. He used to take me there and it was a big deal. I got to order what I wanted. And I always ordered bean soup. Don't ask me why! I always ordered bean soup.
My memories go back to when I was a kid. Sometimes very sad, sometimes very good. And now, my saying that, I always say, "It's a different world." It's a very different world.
And that's my story.
Schoen: So Reva, you shared with me as I walked in today a poem that you had written, did you say about 20 years ago?
Simon: At least.
Simon: At that time I was feeling my age, which was probably in my sixties or seventies, and I wrote this poem. And it was called “Post Mid-Life Crisis” by Reva Simon.
The years unwind like a spool of yarn with random knots
and twists along the way.
Unraveled, heartaches, triumphs are the nubs that dot
the skein;
The smooth, even thread between spells out the compromises,
acceptance and happier times.
And I, at the age of looking back,—not ahead,
Suffer the aches for those gone-away years,
too late to rip out, or mend and start again.
The end.
Can you imagine what I feel like today? I wrote this so many years ago! Who knew what was ahead. Anyway, I don't want to dwell on maudlin things like that.
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.