page_title: Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation / History
caption_attribution_description: People pay their respects at a memorial to the victims of a mass shooting in front of the Tree of Life - Or L'Simcha Congregation in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on November 4, 2018.
context_page_description: Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation is a Conservative Jewish synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The congregation moved into its present synagogue building in 1953. It merged with Congregation Or L'Simcha in 2010, bringing its membership to 530 families.
  Originally founded as an Orthodox Jewish congregation in 1864, it gradually moved closer to Conservative Judaism. In 1886, it affiliated with the Jewish Theological Seminary Association, at the time an Orthodox institution, but which developed the Conservative ideology in the early 1900s. Tree of Life joined with JTS offshoot United Synagogue of America about 1916, formally connecting to the nascent Conservative movement.
  In 2018, the synagogue was the target of a mass shooting in which eleven people were killed and seven injured. It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States.
context_section_description: Tree of Life Congregation was formed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1864 as a breakaway group from Rodef Shalom, an Orthodox synagogue founded in 1854 which began adopting Reform practices following the visit of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise to the city. The initial group of 16 members met in the home of Gustavus Grafner. Then called by its Hebrew name, Etz Chayyim (Hebrew: עץ חיים, transl. 'Tree of Life'), the congregation was chartered in 1865 and acquired land in Sharpsburg for use as a cemetery. The congregation met in temporary locations in the downtown area over the coming years, until in 1883 it bought a former Lutheran church property downtown. At that point, it became known by its English name, Tree of Life. 
  In its early years, Tree of Life was the city's center for Orthodox Judaism, and attracted Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In 1883, it shortened the traditional Orthodox prayer service, and in 1886 became affiliated with the Jewish Theological Seminary Association, a rabbinical training institute which was at the time an Orthodox institution but which developed the Conservative ideology in the early 1900s. Around 1916, Tree of Life joined the national Conservative Jewish network, the United Synagogue of America.
  In 1906, the congregation began constructing a permanent home on Craft Avenue in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The synagogue opened in 1907 with sanctuary seating for 750. English-language prayers were introduced the same year.
  Beginning in the 1920s, Tree of Life shifted further toward left-wing Conservative Judaism under the direction of Rabbi Herman Hailperin, who led the congregation for 45 years. Among the practices Hailperin instituted were organ music during the prayer services, the elimination of the rabbinically-mandated second day of festival observance, the election of women to the temple's board of trustees, the calling of women to the Torah reading, and counting women as part of the minyan.
  In 1953, Tree of Life moved into its present building in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The land for the new structure was gifted by then-synagogue president Charles J. Rosenbloom. The synagogue symbolically showed its ties to Israel with a cornerstone hewn from limestone quarried in Jerusalem. The structure initially opened with a library, kitchen, an arts and crafts store, a stage, and vestry rooms. In 1959 the congregation broke ground on a 1,400-seat sanctuary fronted by "rows of swirling, modernistic stained-glass windows illustrating the story of creation, the acceptance of God's law, the 'life cycle' and 'how human-beings should care for the earth and one another". In 1995, membership numbered 850 families.
caption: Synagogue facade
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