It’s been seven years since 11 Jewish worshippers were killed during morning prayer services in a Squirrel Hill synagogue.
In the Jewish faith, the seventh year of a cycle is seen as a sabbatical year, in which agricultural land is left to rest and debts are forgiven.
It’s also a time to recognize the burden people may be carrying, said Maggie Feinstein, director of the 10.27 Healing Partnership.
“If we cannot remove that burden, then we can still consider what peace may be released or how to tend to it,” Feinstein said. “The sacred text knew what many of us feel, which is seven years is a reckoning, [it] reveals that the gap between before and after is widening. We all hold this space to ensure that the 11 are never forgotten.”
Members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community packed a room at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill Monday evening to remember Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
The eleven Jewish worshippers were killed during Shabbat services on Oct. 27, 2018. They belonged to three congregations: Congregation Dor Hadash, New Light Congregation and the Tree of Life Congregation.
During the ceremony, family and friends of the victims lit candles in remembrance. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation, who survived the attack, offered a prayer for the souls of the departed, his voice full of grief.
Seven survivors read, then sang Psalm 23: “ Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. You are with me, God.”
Audrey Glickman, a survivor, said it’s important to come back together each year to remember those lost and support the community.
“As we’ve learned over these seven years, we’re not the only victims. Everybody else in the community was a victim of the murders,” Glickman said. “And people need space to lean into being a victim and healing from that and moving on from it.”
Rachel McDevitt
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90.5 WESA
Students from Pittsburgh CAPA performed during an event to commemorate seven years since an attack on a Squirrel Hill synagogue killed 11 worshippers on Oct. 27, 2025.
Sharyn Stein’s husband Daniel Stein was killed in the attack. She remembers him as a very generous person who often volunteered and donated blood.
“He always had a smile and a twinkle in his eye. He was just a kind person,” she said. “And we loved him. And we still do.”
Sharyn Stein said the commemoration overwhelmed her with emotions, and that seeing the amount of people there was powerful.
“Overall, it’s so beautiful to have the community stand by us and for us to know that people are there,” she said.
Jason Lando, now the police chief in Frederick, Maryland, was the incident commander with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police on Oct. 27, 2018.
A Squirrel Hill native, Lando attended Tree of Life for Sunday school and Hebrew school. He said he’ll never forget getting the call to respond to the synagogue that day.
He also remembers how the Pittsburgh community came together in the days and weeks after the attack.
“ Remembrance is not just about looking back. It’s also a commitment to move forward with purpose,” Lando said. “Seven years later, we are still fighting the hate that led to the attack. We are still working to ensure that no community, Jewish or otherwise, faces such terror.”
Though it included prayers, the ceremony Monday was a secular event. Religious ceremonies are scheduled from sundown on Nov. 8 to sundown on Nov. 9, which is the 18th of Cheshvan on the Hebrew calendar. In Judaism, the date of someone’s death is often commemorated on the yahrzeit, or their death date on the Hebrew calendar.
The event was organized by the 10.27 Healing Partnership, a group whose mission is “to foster a sense of community well-being by providing opportunities for reflection, support, and connection for individuals and their loved ones impacted by the attack and others who experience hate-induced trauma.”
The partnership has resources for those experiencing mental health effects from the 2018 attack on its website: 1027healingpartnership.org.