Tree of Life documentary ‘Repairing the World’ premiering at Pittsburgh festival
PITTSBURGH – Film Pittsburgh secured some heavy-hitters for this year’s JFilm Festival lineup.
The 2022 version of the annual festival highlighting Jewish-themed films opened Thursday evening with the Pittsburgh debut of Cha Cha Real Smooth, writer-director Cooper Raiff’s bar mitzvah dramedy that shot in Western Pennsylvania last summer. JFilm runs through May 8 and features 18 films — including Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen, a documentary narrated by West Homestead native Jeff Goldblum about the 1971 movie adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof.
This year’s hybrid online and in-person festival also includes the world premiere of the documentary Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life, which shows Pittsburghers standing together against hate following the 2018 mass shooting at Squirrel Hill’s Tree of Life synagogue. The screening will be May 5 and will be followed by a Q&A with director and producer Patrice O’Neill, as well as other participants in the film.
“It was something that was reflecting a dangerous trend in this country,” O’Neill said. “We felt so strongly that we had to come to Pittsburgh, see what would happen next, and learn from the people of Pittsburgh and the actions of the people of Pittsburgh so we could share them with communities across the country.”
O’Neill has been telling stories about ordinary Americans banding together to combat hate of all types since 1995. That’s when PBS premiered her 30-minute film Not in Our Town, about the citizens of Billings, Montana, uniting after a series of racially and religiously motivated hate crimes. The film’s message resonated so much that O’Neill turned Not in Our Town into a fullfledged movement that’s been promoting tolerance and inclusivity for more than 25 years.
Charene Zalis, O’Neill’s filmmaking partner, was on the ground in Pittsburgh a few days after the Tree of Life shooting. What she found was an entire city rallying around its Jewish neighbors, and
that was enough to convince Zalis and O’Neill that it would be worth sticking around to make a full documentary about the city’s healing efforts.
The film’s title comes from the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam, which roughly translates to repair the world. O’Neill is not Jewish and her first trip to Pittsburgh was for this documentary. She was struck by the city’s beauty and hopes Pittsburghers will “see that reflection of our eyes on your city in the film,” she said.
When she first learned of the Tree of Life massacre, O’Neill and her team “were horrified, but we were not surprised” given how closely they had been following the rise of both antisemitism and white supremacist activity. The Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents recently found that such incidents “reached an all-time high in the US in 2021, with a total of 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism reported to the ADL.”
ONE OF O’Neill’s goals with Repairing the World was to use Pittsburgh’s post-Tree of Life solidarity to show how everyone is responsible for combating hate, not just the communities that are targeted.
“I do not think standing up to antisemitism is a Jewish issue,” O’Neill said. “It’s something that has to happen with everyone in this country. It’s like saying fighting racism is just for Black people. That’s unconscionable and not true. The same is true of antisemitism.”
Repairing the World starts on October 27, 2018, and chronicles the city’s and individuals’ attempts to heal and grow over the next three years. O’Neill made a point not to spend much screen time on the attack itself and the perpetrator’s name won’t be mentioned at all in the documentary’s final cut.
Most of the key players are represented in Repairing the World, including Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, former Mayor Bill Peduto, police chief Scott Schubert, important figures from the city’s Christian and Muslim communities, the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh executive director Lauren Bairnsfather, local high school students deeply affected by the shooting and many more.
Survivors and their families are also prominently featured, especially the Mallinger family, whose matriarch, Rose Mallinger, was among the 11 victims. O’Neill said that while she and her team were able to interview Rabbi Myers with-* in days of the attack, they waited about six months to begin talking to family members and others connected to the victims.
“It’s just been such a joy to get to know them and all the people we have interviewed,” O’Neill said. “I think these are relationships I feel like I will have for the rest of my life.”
Viewers may notice what has changed since work began on Repairing the World. Most notably, Mayor Ed Gainey is still listed as a state representative during his brief appearance. O’Neill said that the documentary is intended to be a “portrait of the people in the process of making change.” Though Gainey’s role was relatively small at the time, he will be a huge part of writing the next chapter of how Pittsburgh fights hate, O’Neill said.
Mainly, Repairing the World is meant to provide a restorative narrative and help Pittsburgh tell its own story of how it has rebounded from the mass shooting, O’Neill said. She screened the film for survivors and their families earlier this week, and their emotional responses “gave us a sense that we were listening well,” while attempting to capture their pain and hope.