Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Shribman delivered a sweeping and deeply personal talk Wednesday night in Marblehead about antisemitism, political polarization, journalism and the enduring importance of community alliances in confronting hatred.
Shribman grew up in Swampscott and has family in Marblehead.
Speaking before about 130 people at the high school, alongside Marblehead Rabbi David Meyer, Shribman reflected at length on the 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where 11 worshippers were killed in what he called “the most serious antisemitic episode in American history.”
Shribman, former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, recalled receiving a phone call while exercising at the gym that morning from a friend who said, “I just saw a bunch of policemen walking backwards out of the Tree of Life with guns.”
He rushed to the newsroom, where staff members — many of whom lived in Pittsburgh’s heavily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood — had already begun arriving.
The attack, he said, profoundly affected the newspaper staff personally as well as professionally. He described beginning each day after the shooting by gathering staff in a semicircle and reminding them of their responsibility not only to report on Pittsburgh but also to represent it.
“Our job was to speak to Pittsburgh, but also to speak for Pittsburgh, because the nation’s eyes were on us for seven or eight days.”
Shribman also recounted the decision to publish the newspaper with a Hebrew headline after the massacre — an editorial choice that drew international attention. The gesture, he said, was intended to show solidarity with victims and families.
“I wanted to make an expression that our entire community … was united and in solidarity with the families and the victims,” Shribman said. “That what was our tragedy was everybody’s tragedy.”
Throughout the evening, Shribman warned that antisemitism remains a growing danger in the United States and abroad. He described antisemitism as cyclical, saying each generation falsely believes old hatreds have disappeared.
“Each generation is tempted to believe that it has outgrown the old hatreds, and each generation, sooner or later, is confronted with evidence that it has not,” he said.
Asked what may have prompted the latest spike in antisemitism, Shribman said, “There was grave concern about (Israeli) Prime Minister Netanyahu’s extremely aggressive attack on civilians. That didn’t help.”
Going to extremes
Shribman argued that modern political polarization has deepened divisions in American life, though he suggested the country’s elected leaders are often more ideologically extreme than the public itself.
“The leaders are Bernie Sanders and AOC and Donald Trump,” he said. “And I think the public is more with Bill Clinton and Mitt Romney.”
He lamented the disappearance of moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats in Congress.
“Now, there are no liberal Republicans and no conservative Democrats anymore, and that’s a huge problem,” he said.
Shribman also criticized what he called the use of antisemitism as a “pretext” to attack colleges and universities, though he said he did not doubt the sincerity of efforts to combat antisemitism itself.
The evening repeatedly returned to the importance of alliances across communities. Shribman praised cooperation among Jewish, Black, Christian and Muslim communities following the Tree of Life shooting.
“One of our friends in Pittsburgh was the Islamic Center,” he said. “They were one of the first to rush to the scene and offer all kinds of help.”
Discussing a Super Bowl advertisement funded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft that depicted a Black student defending a Jewish classmate from bullying, Shribman said he viewed the ad as an important symbol of solidarity.
“I thought that was a discussion of something that was really quite great, that Blacks and Jews were in this fight together. And I wish that more Blacks and more Jews were in this fight together.”
‘The last believers‘
Shribman also defended the role of journalism in democracy, describing reporting as both a public service and a vocation.
“We regard ourselves as having a sacred mission,” he said. “And the mission is to inform the people.”
He rejected claims that mainstream journalism intentionally fabricates stories.
“In my 50 plus years in journalism … I’ve never participated in and never witnessed the fabrication of a story, of a paragraph, a sentence, or a syllable,” Shribman said.
He acknowledged widespread distrust of the media but argued that journalists continue to believe deeply in democratic institutions.
“We are the last believers,” he said. “We believe in the system, we believe in truth, while the rest of the country doesn’t believe in anything.”
Asked what message he would offer younger generations, Shribman called the United States “the greatest country on Earth” while acknowledging the nation’s historical sins of slavery and genocide against Native Americans.
“This country’s tradition is to expand rather than to retract rights,” he said. “The great moments in American history have been moments when leaders have had the vision to imagine a country that gave comfort to the uncomfortable.”
He closed by urging listeners to continue engaging with one another across lines of difference.
“I think alliances, listening to our neighbors, understanding the pain of others,” Shribman said, “that is the richness of our country.”
Shribman’s appearance was sponsored by Marblehead Public Schools, Police, Ministerial Association and the Task Force Against Discrimination.
