
The Halloween season has always been special for me. It’s the time when it seems the entire country shares the fascination with the dark side of human experience that has inspired me from my youth as a fan of horror movies to my current career as a professor of English and film studies focused on the horror genre.
I’m a member of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, and the Halloween season has also carried a very different connotation for the past seven years. On Oct. 27, 2018, Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue was the site of the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history.