Outside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh are 11 glass and porcelain flower ornaments, each a symbol of the lives lost on 27 October 2018 in the worst antisemitic attack in US history.
A large, long fence surrounds much of the complex, part of which is being demolished to be replaced with a museum and a memorial to the victims of the attack.
But as Pittsburgh’s Jewish community prepared to mark the sixth anniversary of the day that a shooter opened fire in the synagogue during Shabbat services, fear of rising antisemitism in Pennsylvania and across the US has increased rather than dissipated in the years since the attack.
In a battleground state such as Pennsylvania, Jewish voters – traditionally a cohort the Democratic party can rely on – are considering who might best address their concerns going to the polls in next month’s presidential election.
Pennsylvania is home to about 300,000 Jews of voting age, according to the American Jewish Population Project, the largest number in any of the seven battleground states.
As with Arab Americans, who polls suggest are deserting the Democrats this year, Donald Trump and his backers see an opportunity in Pennsylvania’s Jewish community.
The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending $15m on TV ads featuring Jewish voters in battleground states that portray the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, as being out of step with Israel’s security concerns.
“That is the largest [amount] ever by any Jewish group targeting Jewish voters in an election,” says Sam Markstein, the RJC’s national political director.
“Jewish Americans make up roughly 2% of the [US] population but we are subjected to roughly 60% of all religious hate crimes last year. This is a real and deeply personal issue, and our leaders have not taken it nearly as seriously as they should.”
Figures from the FBI found last year that anti-Jewish hate crimes spiked to “historic” levels after the 7 October attacks on Israel and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza, though some of the incidents counted almost certainly include anti-Zionist rhetoric that pro-Palestinian advocates dispute are antisemitic.
About 26% of Pennsylvania’s Jewish electorate identify as or lean Republican, roughly aligning with the national picture – a Pew poll last month found about two-thirds of Jewish voters planned to back Harris. In 2020, about seven in 10 Jewish voters supported Biden.
But a poll conducted in the summer, shortly after Harris replaced Biden at the top of the ticket, found that Trump trailed Harris by just 12% among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania.
What’s more, down-ballot races in Pennsylvania could help pull more Jewish voters towards Trump. The Republican Senate candidate David McCormick, who owns a home in Squirrel Hill, a Pittsburgh neighborhood that is home to Tree of Life and a large Jewish community, has campaigned heavily in the district, focusing on the threat to Israel posed by Iran and attacking Democrats for not being harder on pro-Palestinian protesters at local universities. His race against the Democratic incumbent, Bob Casey, is seen as a toss-up.
Jim Busis, the publisher of the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, a newspaper based in Squirrel Hill, says that in such a tight presidential race, candidates such as the Democrat Summer Lee, a member of the “Squad” of progressive Democrats and prominent critic of Israel, who represents a district that includes a large portion of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, could have a significant effect on whether Jews in Pennsylvania vote Democratic or Republican.
“Most people would say that she is objectively anti-Israel and she’s a Democrat. So when people look at Democrats versus Republicans, that factors into it,” he says.
While Lee ultimately won her Democratic primary in April, in ward 14, which incorporates Squirrel Hill and other areas with large numbers of Jewish voters, Lee’s performance fell by more than 20% compared with 2022.
In July, antisemitic graffiti was left on the buildings of two prominent Jewish organizations in Squirrel Hill. Alleged hate crimes involving assaults of Jewish students at and near the University of Pittsburgh have been reported in recent weeks, while a woman saw a Nazi rallying cry sprayed on the ground outside her home last April.
But the community is not united. Progressive Jewish groups who supported Lee’s early call for a ceasefire campaigned heartily for her. They have been visible in the pro-Palestinian movement that has spread in the last year.
“The Jewish population is a relatively small portion of the state’s voters so it’s often hard to pinpoint their behaviors … but it’s no surprise that when we’re talking about cleavages [it’s] issues related to Israel and the war,” says Berwood Yost, director for the Center of Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Yost says that Lee, who has outraised her Republican challenger, James Hayes, by millions of dollars, is unlikely to lose despite reservations from some Jewish voters.
“But you never know because the election environment is so bad for Democrats right now. But it would be a surprise.”
He added that in a recent poll of Pennsylvanians, those who said foreign affairs and Israel were a major concern were split in their support for Trump and Harris, highlighting the tightness of the race in in the state.
But despite advances by Trump and his backers, Jewish voters across all swing states are still expected to back Harris – even if some see her as the lesser of two bad candidates.
For Ella-Gabriel Mason, a Philadelphia-based massage therapist and choreographer who is Jewish, casting her early vote for Harris was “a little bit of a harm-reduction vote”.
“I really want to see an end to the US arming Israel and unfortunately neither candidate is going to provide that right now,” they say.
“I find the way that [Trump] talks about Israel and antisemitism incredibly infuriating because it’s really the way that he’s supported and emboldened white supremacist violence.”
Two years ago, Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, visited the Tree of Life Synagogue. Harris has played a role in establishing the first National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, a Biden administration project founded last year. She has also refused to break from Joe Biden on his full-throated support for Israel, angering Arab Americans whose votes could also prove decisive.
Trump, meanwhile, has been criticized for suggesting last month that Jewish people would share a significant amount of blame if he loses the election, and that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel”. Markstein, however, sought to play down some of Trump’s comments and doesn’t see them as a warning or threat from the former president.
“All he was saying is the inverse of what we’ve been saying – that the Jewish community is going to play a key voting role,” he says.
Busis, the newspaper publisher, agrees.
“It’s not like you’re going to suddenly see it go 50-50 but it could swing a little bit more towards the Trump side, and in a very close election in a swing state that could tip the balance nationally.”
• This article was amended on 28 October 2024. A previous version incorrectly attributed a quote made by Sam Markstein to Jim Busis.
