Trauma Recovery In Aisle 4

Recovering from a communal trauma can begin in the aisles of a neighborhood supermarket.

New Haven author Mark Oppenheimer discovered that as he dived into the aftermath of the most brutal attack in U.S. history on a synagogue.

Oppenheimer has spent the last year shuttling back and forth between Westville and Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood to research a forthcoming book on how that community coped with a massacre that occurred Oct. 17, 2018 inside the Tree of Life Synagogue. An anti-Semitic gunman burst into Sabbath morning services, shooting 11 people to death and injuring another 11.

A year later, the community is still healing from that traumatic event, Oppenheimer reported during a visit to WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. The synagogue, for instance, hasn’t decided what to do yet with the property; no services have taken place there since the massacre.

The quest to understand the massacre and its impact on Squirrel Hill has given Oppenheimer a ​“sense of mission,” he said.

“I was very interested in how neighborhoods build resilience and promote resilience, especially in the aftermath of tragedy and trauma,” said Oppenheimer, a former New York Times religion columnist and New Haven Advocate editor who hosts a popular national Jewish-culture podcast called Unorthodox.

Squirrel Hill is the oldest continuously intact urban Jewish community in the country, he said. Jews remained there during the 1960s-1970s white flight that wiped out other urban Jewish communities around the country (like New Haven’s Oak Street neighborhood). Synagogues and Jewish markets and community spaces have remained there as well.

That has helped people recover from the trauma of the massacre, Oppenheimer reported.

“Neighborhood matters. Geographic proximity and closeness matter in how people cope. A lot of people said, ​‘I didn’t want to leave the house. I didn’t want to see people. But I live two blocks from the Giant Eagle supermarket. So I would go shopping and I would bump into people, and they would give me a hug, and that meant everything.’”

Another strength that has helped Squirrel Hill cope: A tradition of cooperation and support among Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and secular Jews.

Jewish congregations nationwide, including in the New Haven area, have increased security since the massacre. Oppenheimer has found that research is inconclusive about what steps actually make congregants safer, versus those that make congregants feel safer (another important goal). The decision of some rabbis to leave a cell phone (turned on before the beginning of Sabbath) near their seats in case of an emergency probably makes sense, Oppenheimer said. So does having a few ​“responsible” trained legal gun-owners come armed, and remain inconspicuous, during a service.

Locking doors and having someone screen people who show up for services might not have the same impact, he concluded. He said he has found ​“no evidence that locked doors save lives in synagogues.”

“It’s not hard for a person to get into a building” as long as he ​“doesn’t look crazy,” Oppenheimer said. He can overpower a single guard and then get inside and start shooting. Oppenheimer likened measures like that to ​“security theater,” similar to the way TSA has travelers remove shoes at all airports based on one failed shoe-bombing attempt.

The evidence is clear that anti-Semitism is in the rise in America, Oppenheimer has found, and communities will continue debating how best to deal with the threats posed as a result in the wake of the Pittsburgh attack. (Click here for a story about how a New Haven zoning commissioner named Ann Stone singlehandedly prevented a local synagogue from taking security measures based on her assessment that the congregation president was trying to fool her with a fake concern. Note: Oppenheimer and I both attend that synagogue.)

Oppenheimer will discuss his findings during a community commemorative event at the Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven (360 Amity Rd.) planned for the evening of Nov. 6, beginning at 7:15 p.m.

Click on the video below to watch the full discussion with Oppenheimer on WNHH FM’s ​“Dateline New Haven.”