page_title: Judah Samet
section_title: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
hierarchical_section_title: Judah Samet / Career and activities / Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
caption_attribution_description: First Lady Melania Trump and Mrs. Karen Pence participate in a listening session with gallery guests Judah Samet and Timothy Matson Tuesday, February 5, 2019, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)
context_page_description: Judah Samet is a businessman, speaker, and Holocaust survivor. At the age of six, he and his family were taken from Debrecen, Hungary, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they spent eleven months. After the Second World War the family immigrated to Israel, where he subsequently served in the Israel Defense Forces and worked as a teacher. He later moved to Canada and then to the United States. In 2018, he was a witness to and survivor of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. He is a jeweler and speaker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
context_section_description: On October 27, 2018, eleven Jews were killed and seven injured in a mass shooting during Shabbat services at the Tree of Life building, marking the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. Samet was four or five minutes late to the service because he had been delayed by his housekeeper. When he pulled into a handicapped spot on the parking lot, Samet was approached by a man who told him to leave due to the active shooter. Before pulling out of the parking lot unharmed, Samet had a clear vision of the shooting exchange between the gunman and a police officer. 
  I was flushed with (memories of) the concentration camp. It kind of descended on me. And I was thinking to myself, "It never ends, it never ends for my family." Whoever thought when you come to America, you're gonna go through the same thing all over again?
  — Judah Samet, in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (2018)
  U.S. President Donald Trump invited Samet to be one of his personal guests at the 2019 State of the Union Address, which Trump gave on February 5, 2019. Samet visited the White House and met President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, First Daughter Ivanka Trump, and Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner. After Trump introduced Samet in the Address and noted that it was Samet's 81st birthday, the crowd applauded, gave him a standing ovation, and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Samet smiled, blew a kiss, waved down to Trump, stood up, bowed his head, and shouted "thank you". Trump jokingly conducted with his hands and said, "They wouldn't do that for me". Samet was not wearing his kippah at the Address because a government employee had told him "nobody wears a hat here" upon entering the House Chamber. Samet later said that he admired Trump and called him a "working man". A Republican, Samet supports Trump, saying about him: "I like him very much. He is strongly pro-Israel. That a man would go outright for Israel and declare for Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel ... that was something new." Samet is, however, not politically active, as opposed to his Democratic family members.
caption: Left to right: Second Lady of the U.S. Karen Pence, First Lady of the U.S. Melania Trump, Samet, and Pittsburgh police Officer Timothy Matson, at a listening session prior to the 2019 State of the Union Address
exif: {"Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "ILCE-9", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 8.0 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2019:02:06 09:41:22", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "906", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "18330", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "10000", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "10000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:02:05 20:32:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:02:05 20:32:53", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "477741/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "847997/500000", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-157/320", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "35", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "13794807/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "13794807/8192", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[35, 35, 7/5, 7/5]", "EXIF LensModel": "FE 35mm F1.4 ZA"}