Parkland, Tree of Life survivors to meet here

A delegation from Parkland, Fla., is scheduled to arrive in Pittsburgh on Friday for a series of discussions, memorials and service projects conducted jointly by those affected by last year’s gun massacres at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill.

Visitors will include five teenage survivors of the Feb. 14, 2018, shootings at the high school in Parkland, which claimed 17 lives. Also attending will be 13 adults directly affected by the Parkland shootings.

They will take part in a series of public events Friday through Sunday. Activities will include a memorial at the Tree of Life / Or L’Simcha synagogue, where an anti-Semitic gunman killed 11 worshippers from three congregations on Oct. 27, 2018.

The visitors will gather with teens at Pittsburgh Allderdice High School in Squirrel Hill on Friday morning before attending a memorial event outside the synagogue with representatives of the congregations.

The Pittsburgh Pirates will host representatives from Parkland and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh at their Saturday game at PNC Park, and on Sunday the Parkland visitors will join more than 300 teens for a day of service known as JServe, also coordinated by the JCC.

There will also be times for survivors of the shootings, and those grieving loved ones, to meet privately.

Rabbi Ron Symons, senior director of Jewish Life at the JCC, said the relationship between the two stricken cities began soon after Oct. 27, when Parkland survivors contacted the Pittsburgh community to ask what they could do together.

“We keep talking about redefining neighbor from a geographic term to a moral concept,” Rabbi Symons said. “It is a ministry of presence.”