In a bittersweet ceremony held on Sunday, June 23, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh broke ground for a memorial and a new Tree of Life building. The synagogue was the scene of a mass shooting on Oct. 27, 2018, when a gunman opened fire and killed 11 worshippers.

The building will house a sanctuary for the Tree of Life congregation — one of three congregations that were meeting at the synagogue at the time of the shooting — also an education center dedicated to combating bigotry, and a museum chronicling the long history of antisemitism in America.

The museum will be the first in the United States dedicated exclusively to the history of antisemitism in America, from colonial days through the hard-line anti-immigration  politics of the mid-20th century to the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017.