{"id":1833,"date":"2018-10-28T22:03:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-28T22:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1833"},"modified":"2018-10-28T22:03:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-28T22:03:09","slug":"hills-shadowed-valleys-squirrel-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1833","title":{"rendered":"Hills, Shadowed Valleys, Squirrel Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Reuben and Anne Pearlman, by Eve O’Shea<\/p><\/div>\n

Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods, of hills and shadowed valleys. The valleys or “hollers” – Pittsburgh is on the edge of Appalachia – have had plenty of darkness over different eras. Parts of the city seem backwoods, almost abandoned – the light barely flickers there.<\/p>\n

The steel industry collapsed, things got worse, things got better, and the city of neighborhoods – that’s what Pittsburgh is – picked up to become a comeback city. Houses in the hollers were picked up by\u00a0young homesteaders who lived alternatively, starting B &Bs, planting organic gardens, remaking neighborhoods. The newness of the Warhol museum, City of Asylum, Mattress Factory on the working class Northside made it not my father’s Pittsburgh.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We were four generations in Pittsburgh; my grandfather grew up in the Hill District, then moved to Squirrel Hill. He was an old-style family doctor who made house calls with stethoscope in his leather kit.\u00a0 He sometimes took his payment in garden vegetables, or a chicken. When the Hill became mainly black neighborhood, he stayed working there and some patients, the story goes, named their kids after him (Reuben).<\/p>\n

They davened in Synagogue Beth Shalom; were long members there until my parents moved to Rodef Shalom. I can’t imagine the decades were easy. I heard stories of some families during the Depression having to put their kids in Jewish adoption homes, and were lucky if the kids were there when money came back in.<\/p>\n

My father worked outside the city in the mining counties. It took not recklessness but confidence to be that “Jewish buccaneer.” It was possible. Sometimes he had to shine a powerful flashlight down those hollers.<\/p>\n

How far have we not come? We’re subjects of history’s hills and shadowed valleys. My grand-parents and parents, who have all passed, would have been surpised if they’d been told to take literally the psalm: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—<\/p>\n

Many people are reminding us alongside the darkness there is abundant light.\u00a0 So be it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods, of hills and shadowed valleys. The valleys or “hollers” – Pittsburgh is on the edge of Appalachia – have had plenty of darkness over different eras. Parts of the city seem backwoods, almost abandoned … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[785,687,783,782,248,781,784],"class_list":["post-1833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-anti-semitism","tag-anti-semitism","tag-jewish-history","tag-massacre","tag-pittsburgh","tag-squirrel-hill","tag-tree-of-life-synagogue"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-tz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1834,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1833\/revisions\/1834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}