JTA via New York Jewish Week — At first glance, the prayer book is one that’s found at countless Conservative synagogues across the country: Siddur Sim Shalom, which was published in 1985 by the Rabbinical Assembly.

But the chewed-up appearance of the book’s left corner tells a different story: This siddur was grazed by a bullet during the October 27, 2018, mass shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. That day, 11 Jewish worshippers from three congregations were killed during prayer services — the deadliest act of antisemitism on American soil.

The book is one of 22 objects on view at a new exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage: A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. The exhibit chronicles the long history of American antisemitism before and after Pittsburgh, from the 1915 lynching of Leo Frank, a Jew who was wrongly convicted of murder, to the firebombing last June at a pro-Israel demonstration in Boulder, Colorado, where at least seven people were injured and one later died.

“Lessons from the Tree of Life: Lighting the Path Forward” is part of a series of exhibits, events and installations at the museum marking three terrible anniversaries: the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel by Hamas and Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led pogrom of November 9, 1938.

“We decided that at this point in time that [an exhibit on Pittsburgh] would be an important thing to do,” Jack Kliger, CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage told the New........

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