Pittsburgh’s quaintly named Squirrel Hill had been one of the oldest and safest Jewish neighborhoods in the United States. That changed on Shabbat morning, October 27, 2018, when a lone shooter murdered 11 worshippers in the Tree of Life synagogue. It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.

Mark Oppenheimer’s Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood (Knopf), focuses not on the killer, but on the reactions of Pittsburghers in general, and especially the responses of Squirrel Hill residents. That is why it is likely to become the definitive study of the horrific massacre that attracted global attention.
​
Oppenheimer, the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative and a former religion columnist for The New York Times, is uniquely qualified to describe the shooting and its aftermath. His great-great-great grandfather settled in Pittsburgh in the 1840s, and the author’s father was born in the city.

In the course of his research, Oppenheimer made 32 trips to Pittsburgh from his home in Connecticut. He writes: “The question that I started coming to Pittsburgh with,” he writes,  “was how does the fact of Squirrel Hill, with its close-knit neighborhood—close-knit both geographically, but also emotionally and spiritually—affect people’s recovery in the aftermath of a mass tragedy?”

​In How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion (Simon & Schuster), Northeastern University Psychology professor David DeSteno asserts that even skeptics, not just believers, can draw strength and comfort from religion in their personal lives. "Science and religion," he writes, "have often been at odds. But if we remove the theology -- views about the nature of God, the creation of the universe, and the like -- from the day-to-day practice of religious faith, the animosity in the debate evaporates."

Throughout his well-researched book, DeSteno demonstrates how psychological insights on well-being align with religious practices across faith communities. He believes that in combination, these disciplines can provide believers and non-believers with a toolbox for coping with the vicissitudes of human existence.

Like many before him, DeSteno describes how religious life-cycle events, prayers, rituals, and liturgies anchored to the concepts of virtue, empathy, compassion and gratitude can provide a healthy rootedness in one's life.
​
So far so good.