PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (Press Release) — Five years ago, a white supremacist murdered 11 Jews at prayer at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. The killings — one of a series of violent racist attacks committed by an increasingly aggressive white supremacist movement shocked the nation and left Pittsburgh reeling.
Now, the story is coming to public television.
Flower memorials outside the Tree of Life Synagogue after the shooting. Photo courtesy of Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life.
In the days and months that followed, documentary filmmaker Patrice O’Neill and her film team followed survivors, their families, and other members of the Pittsburgh community who sought to grapple with what had transpired and confront the hatred that inspired it. Her new film, Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life, will air on public television nationwide in late October, coinciding with Jewish communities and allies across America marking the fifth anniversary of this attack. “Repairing the World” offers a timely and powerful exploration of the enduring threat of antisemitism and the collective efforts to combat it.
“Pittsburgh provided a model for what people can do to combat antisemitism and hate,” O’Neill says. “As we watched the events unfold in Pittsburgh, what we found is a community that cared deeply for one another. We saw a diverse cross-section of the community standing together in the face of horrific violence.”
“Racism and antisemitism are intertwined in the messaging that has fueled recent mass hate crime killings,” adds O’Neill. “What we’ve learned is that we can do something to stop the spread of hate, and our local communities are places where we can effectively make change that can be felt in people’s lives. We have to find new ways to mobilize the vast majority of people in our cities and towns who don’t want the spread of hate speech and violence to harm themselves, their children, or their neighbors.”
Patrice O’Neill, CEO of Not in Our Town, a movement to stop hate, racism, and bullying to build safe, inclusive communities for all, leads a globally recognized filmmaking team that, for over 25 years, has been at the forefront of investigating community responses to hate. Not In Our Town was founded in the wake of O’Neill and Rhian Miller’s acclaimed documentary Not in Our Town, which chronicled a small Montana town’s community-wide response to white supremacist hate crimes. Additional films on community responses to hate have followed, including Waking in Oak Creek, about the hate crime massacre at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, and Light in the Darkness, a profile of a Long Island Village responding to the killing of an Ecuadorian immigrant.
In conjunction with the nationwide broadcasts from local public television stations throughout the month of October and into November of Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life, Not In Our Town is continuing its work to spark civic and educational engagement to address hate and bias. The producers have made the film available, free of charge, to civic, faith, and community groups, schools, national organizations, government agencies, and others for public screenings and discussions, town hall meetings, internal trainings, conference workshops, and other activities.
For a lesson guide for educators, and resources for screening Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life in your community, visit: https://
Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life will air in San Diego at the following times:
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Monday 11/13 at 11 p.m. on KPBS
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Thursday 11/16 at 9 p.m. on KPBS2
For information regarding broadcast times, please visit: https://repairingtheworldfilm.