Officials gathered outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill on Monday, the last day of Hanukkah, to receive what leaders called a gift that will help the congregation move forward with its mission to remember, rebuild and renew.

The rainy gathering of Gov. Tom Wolf, Mayor Bill Peduto, Mayor-elect Ed Gainey and others marked the celebration of a $6.6 million grant from the state to go toward redeveloping the site.

“Hanukkah means rededication, and that is indeed the journey that we are on,” said Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha Rabbi Jeffrey Myers.

Gov. Tom Wolf’s office announced the grant Friday. The Tree of Life site is one of 16 projects across the state to receive a piece of $54.5 million from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program.

“Today, the Tree of Life community is working to turn this space into a welcoming place of reflection and education and, most of all, of healing,” Wolf said.

Myers presented Wolf with a Tree of Life Menorah.

“May you continue to defy the darkness and bring more light into the world,” he told the governor.

Myers was leading services for Tree of Life when a gunman opened fire Oct. 27, 2018. Eleven worshippers across three congregations – Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light – were killed. It is the deadliest antisemitic attack in United States history.

Myers said the building is one that has, by default, become “the symbol of antisemitism in America.”

“But we will not let that be what Tree of Life is about,” he said. “It is because of friends like you, governor, that we are poised to become much more.”

In May, the congregation’s board of trustees selected New York architect Daniel Libeskind to lead the rebuilding process. The son of Holocaust survivors, he designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin and was central to the rebuilding of the 9/11 site in New York City.

Plans for the space, though still evolving, include spaces for worship and education, a memorial to the 11 victims, and exhibition and program space for the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh.

“We will transform this site that has been marked by horror and the ‘h-word’ (hate) into one full of hope, remembrance and education – a beacon not only to Squirrel Hill nor Pittsburgh nor Pennsylvania nor the United States, but to the world,” Myers said.

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