The mass shooting at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018, in which 11 Jewish worshippers were killed, took place over parents’ weekend at the University of Pittsburgh.
Robyn Markowitz Lawler, who was then working at the Pitt Hillel, had been fielding questions from parents about where they could go to Shabbat services, and she and her staff had told them about Tree of Life.
“When I got the phone call in the morning that there was an active shooter in Squirrel Hill, it was devastating,” Markowitz Lawler, 39, told JNS. “I just remember collapsing on the floor in my dining room thinking, ‘Oh my God.’”
“I was worried that we had dead students and parents,” she said. “Time traveled very slowly and yet fast all at the same time.”
She called students to make sure that they were OK and brought in colleagues from the social work school to the Hillel building to help students process the tragedy.
“I knew then, in that very moment, it could happen anywhere, and it really changed my perspective about safety,” Markowitz Lawler told JNS.
Some eight years later, she is drawing on those lessons in her new role as executive director of Penn State Hillel, where she oversees Jewish life for one of the largest Jewish student populations in the country, at Pennsylvania State University.
The campus Hillel building is new and secure. “I train our front desk staff,” she told JNS. “I let them know about Tree of Life, about how people in Pittsburgh felt before and after, and I train them with lots of thoroughness and detail about safety precautions.”
“It’s unfortunate that we have to live this way, but I’d rather be safe than sorry,” she said.
‘Aha moment’
A native of Bucks County, Pa., she first encountered Jew-hatred as a student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She told JNS that her father encouraged her to attend a school with a Hillel, but that she was “very stubborn.”
“I realized very quickly that I probably should have listened to my dad,” she said. “My first week, I heard someone say, ‘Don’t Jew me down.’ Someone asked if it was true that we had horns.”
“I was hearing it everywhere,” she said. “Someone’s calculator at the library stopped working, and I overheard them say, ‘Calculator must be Jewish.’ In the same library, I heard someone saying, ‘I got the shoes on sale, but I’m not Jewish.’”
She told JNS that her father said, “Robyn, you’re not a quitter. You chose that school for a reason. If you are upset with not having Jewish community, make your own Jewish community.”
Markowitz Lawler called it the “aha moment” that prompted her to gather everyone Jewish she knew and start getting together for bagels on Saturdays. She worked with Hillel International to organize a Birthright trip to Israel.
While studying at Pitt School of Social Work, she realized that she loved working with college students. She made a promise to herself that if a job ever opened up to work with Jewish college students, she would take it.
“Working for Hillel has been by far the best decision of my life,” she said.
Raising three young children, ages 4, 8 and 10, Markowitz Lawler said that she sees her students in the same light. “We have other people’s children in our care,” she said. “I treat every student here the way I want my kids to walk into a Hillel and be treated.”
“I love my children so much, and I know my students’ parents love them, too,” she said. “I just want to give our students the best possible programs, the best possible learning opportunities and just be that friendly face that they can come to to let us know about the good times and the bad times.”
“The Jewish oys and the joys,” she said.
Markowitz Lawler told JNS that she loves her job and seeing her students on Shabbat.
“My kids even love coming,” she said. “They hate it when we do Shabbat at my house, because they’re not here with the students. My little one stomps her foot and goes, ‘This isn’t Shabbat.’”
“I hope everyone feels this way with their job,” she told JNS. “Our theme this year is ‘soulful and social,’ and I feel it deeply. I feel very lucky, and I couldn’t do it without my incredible team.”
