(Jewish Group) Postcard from Pittsburgh: 5th anniversary of Tree of Life falls amid broader grief

Kimberly Faught, known as the Gypsy Violin Queen of Squirrel Hill, performs in front a Giant Eagle supermarket in Pittsburgh. Photo by Benyamin Cohen

The Gypsy Violin Queen of Squirrel Hill performed an improvised song of grief Wednesday evening in front of a supermarket here in the heart of the Jewish Pittsburgh.

It was two days before the fifth anniversary of the massacre at the nearby Tree of Life synagogue, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. And it was 18 days after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.

The Gypsy Violin Queen, whose real name is Kimberly Faught, is not Jewish — she describes herself as “of every faith” — but plays here in Squirrel Hill a few times a week. A peripatetic free-spirit, she has been providing a mournful soundtrack for her fellow Pittsburgh residents for 15 years.

“You never know who is walking by, and what difference it has on their day,” she told me. Waving her bow, she rested her chin on the one thing that gives her solace amid mourning. “The violin,” she added, “is such an instrument of hope.”

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