PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

More than three months after a jury unanimously sentenced Robert G. Bowers to death for the massacre of 11 Jewish worshipers in Squirrel Hill, survivors, family and friends will once again gather to remember and honor their loved ones. 

The 11 victims of the three congregations — Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash — were Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Irving Younger and Melvin Wax.

The event, from 6 -8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 26 at the Rodef Shalom Congregation is titled “In Memoriam: 5 Years Out, Telling Our Stories for Stronger Gun Legislation.” 

Clergy members, legislators, other gun violence survivors and members of the public are expected to attend.

The event is co-hosted by several groups including the Clergy Council of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence (SHSAGV), CeaseFirePA, Moms Demand Action and the South Hills Gun Sense Alliance. 

“The synagogue shooting here in Pittsburgh – it shattered me,” says Geraldine Massey, a therapist at the Center for Victims who lost two sons in 1993 to gun violence. With every new mass shooting, she mourns. 

“Why go into that sacred place? It was so defiling to me,” she says. 

A gun owner herself, Massey believes in stronger gun legislation and gun owners becoming more responsible.

She is frustrated that neither Congress nor the Pennsylvania legislature has passed meaningful gun control legislation in the five years since the synagogue shooting. 

“If these guns weren’t so readily accessible to these young men, then they would have to find other ways to resolve their conflicts or differences,” says Massey.

“In just a flash of a moment, like the flash of a gun. It takes away the life of a mother and a father and a sister and a brother.”