Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy Hardcover – October 27, 2020

The collection of storytellers offers a perspective from many vantage points. A deeply personal recount of a horrific attack is made more real to fill in the spots that many of us need to complete this ordeal. Perhaps, through Bound in the Bond of Life, that closure is a possibility.There are media reporter accounts of being on the scene. There is the zoomed-out worldview of Tree of Life as it fits into the global scene of Judaism and the bridge that spans Squirrel Hill to Israel. Of course, there are accounts of the impact on - and by - Pittsburghers; the arms-thrown-open embrace of neighbors caring for neighbors. Each essay is a thread of reflection of the tragedy. Greg Zanis's Crosses for Losses turned Stars of David is but one of the personal perspectives that Laura Zittrain Eisenberg adds as a piece to the puzzle that surrounds that October morning. How did so many tokens of remembrance appear? What are the stories of each of the forlorn pilgrims that made their way to the corner of Wilkins and Shady Avenues? Throughout Bound, those pieces stitch together.There is Kevin Haworth's take on Squirrel Hill, from a wide view that starts with the peril of Israel's safety. Ann Belser, journalist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, allows us to see behind the reporter's lense, that there is a soft writer's underbelly. Her account is as much confession as it is coverage; she opens up where most journalists never allow a scene from behind the curtain.Bound in the Bond of Life is a shared collection that is both eerily familiar for those from within the 'eruv' and stoically heartbreaking. There are names and streets and businesses and crossed paths that smack of that Pittsburgh familiarity. It's a small town with big shoulders. Those shoulders carry a bit more weight now, and Bound explains why.

A wonderful collection, weighed down by Abby W. Schachter's disconcerting essay -- with the deceptively innocuous title "Walking is My Tribute." Her comments about 9/11 are grotesque, and she very blatantly does what she claims to disapprove so strongly in the essay. Coming so near the end of the collection I found it a weird, even disturbing way to wrap up such an otherwise heartfelt edition.