Nationally, nearly two-thirds of Jews feel less secure than they did a year previously, according to an American Jewish Committee survey earlier this year.
In Pittsburgh, a man was charged in September for allegedly attacking two university students wearing yarmulkes, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.
A synagogue and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh office were targeted with graffiti. Parents of Jewish college students say their children have endured antisemitism amid protests critical of Israel.
Rabbi Daniel Yolkut of Congregation Poale Zedeck in Squirrel Hill said it's become “unremarkable” for his children to hear antisemitic slurs shouted by motorists.
Rabbi Adelson said that unlike in 2018, local Jews haven't felt widespread community solidarity.
“There’s this feeling that Israel was attacked and then the attacks just continued here,” he said.
Many in Pittsburgh have lived in Israel or have friends or relatives there. For Yolkut, one connection is especially poignant.
As a rabbi in Virginia years ago, his congregants included the family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who in 2023 was taken hostage by Hamas.
“I remember him just as a small child running around my synagogue,” Yolkut recalled. He was devastated to learn weeks ago that Goldberg-Polin was killed by Hamas at age 23, along with five other hostages.
