On October 27, 2018, a man walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in the largely Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There, fueled by rabid anti-Semitic and xenophobic right-wing rage, he took the lives of eleven worshippers: Joyce Fineberg (75), Richard Gottried (65), Rose Mallinger (97), Jerry Rabinowitz (66), brothers Cecil (59) and David (54) Rosenthal, spouses Bernice (84) and Sylvan (86) Simon, Daniel Stein (74), Melvin Wax (87), and Irving Younger (69). For this special issue of Bearings, we invited Joan Latchaw, a poet and professor of English composition at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who lived for many years near Tree of Life, to share reflections on this heinous tragedy. Joan’s “May Their Memory Be a Blessing: A Prayer of Hope after the Tree of Life Massacre” takes a path through grief marked by Jewish traditions of remembrance that lead to hope. And an introduction by Elizabeth Drescher to Gerald Stern’s poem, “The Dancing,” invites consideration of the complex, conflicted path from grief to hope. We also share a piece from our archives by Jamie Wooten that offers a prophetic challenge to those who would preach truth to power.

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