More Than $5.4M From Tree Of Life Donations To Go Victims' Families, Survivors, Congregations And First Responders
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The more than $5.4 million donated to the Tree of Life following the massacre in 2018 will be distributed to victims' families, survivors, congregations and first responders.
The three congregations -- Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light -- requested an independent committee last summer to distribute the $5.4 million in donations.
More than $3 million will be distributed to the families of victims and two people seriously wounded in the 2018 attack. Those trapped in the building during the shooting will get $215,000, and those on the premise will get nearly $24,000.
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Nearly $1.3 million will go toward rebuilding the Tree of Life. Leaders announced last fall that they want to renovate the Squirrel Hill building into what they hope will be a "center for Jewish life in the United States" and a symbol against hatred.
Dor Hadash and New Light will receive about $240,000 each.
"It was a fair, it was a reasonable, it was an equitable process," Co-President of New Light Congregation Stephen Cohen said.
Funds will also be set aside to honor the first responders and create memorials, about $200,000 and $233,000 respectively.
"One of the principles that guided the Committee's deliberations relative to the funds received by Tree of Life was 'shalom b'bayit'—the need to arrive at recommendations that would foster healing in the congregations, among victims' families and harmony throughout the wider Jewish community," said Barbara Caplan, co-president of New Light Congregation, in a press release.
Eleven people were killed by a gunman during the Tree of Life shooting.
"In once sense, money never accomplishes what you want it to. It cant bring back, it can't undo what was done that day. It is a way of saving here is how to move on," Cohen said.
