After Bondi, The Pitt provides a moment of unexpected grace

This article discusses the third episode of The Pitt’s second season.

How do you write a show about a Jewish doctor in Pittsburgh, going about what should be an ordinary day, in the aftermath of the heartbreaking violence at the Tree of Life synagogue? In the first season of The Pitt, the answer seemed to be ‘obliquely’.

Walking the halls of the Pittsburgh Medical Trauma Centre, and flashing back to the chaos of the COVID pandemic, Dr Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) seemed to carry more than his fair share of grief, breaking down slowly to reveal the effects of collective trauma, and the intractable weight of survivor’s guilt.

As an ER doctor, Robby was more likely to have been on shift than at shul on October 27, 2018 – he only attends on High Holidays, and at his grandparents’ place of worship, Rodef Shalom. A half-hour walk from the Tree of Life, at which 11 people lost their lives, Rodef Shalom could just as easily have been the target of antisemitic violence; there is no rhyme or reason to this kind of horror-filled attack.

The story of Tree of Life felt so infused into the first season, in which a mass shooting brought Dr Robby to his knees – in a brutal, climactic scene, he is found hunched over on the floor, clutching his Magen David and reciting the Shema prayer – that I was almost surprised to see it addressed explicitly on this week’s instalment of the show.

But the scenes between new nurse Emma (Laëtitia Hollard), Dr Robby, nurse Perlah (Amielynn Abellera), and their patient, Russian-Jewish emigre Yana Kovalenko (Irina Dubova), added a much-needed coda.

They unfolded quietly, in the midst of a day in which former theology student Whitaker (Gerran Howell), Robby’s new protege, takes care of frequent flier Louie, and Langdon (Patrick Ball), fresh from rehab, quotes from a book of blessings while removing beads from a little boy’s nose.

New nursing graduate Emma, attempting to get to the bottom of Yana’s burns, is in over her head culturally, doing her best but struggling to connect to a patient who is frustrated, possibly ashamed. It’s a relief, to Yana and to us, when Robby walks into the room. Finally, a nice Jewish doctor who knows what a samovar is!

Noah Wyle, who wrote this episode, has talked about incorporating his Russian-Jewish heritage into his character, and the rapport between Yana and Robby feels absolutely authentic. She pesters him about whether he is married, whether he attends synagogue and where, and in doing so, reveals she is a congregant of Tree of Life, and a survivor.

In the next scene, more experienced nurse Perlah has taken over Yana’s care; a woman who, in the chaos of last season, flung herself bodily over a patient to protect them from harm. It is Perlah who reaches out to touch Yana’s shoulder when she opens up about the shooting, her flashbacks, and her sense of bewildering helplessness. Perlah is on the inside too; she knows what it means to be vulnerable.

But it is later, as Perlah is wrapping Yana’s burn, that the show does something I have rarely seen onscreen before. In a matter-of-fact way, Yana confirms of Perlah – who is a hijabi – “You’re Muslim?” And in a voice that threatens to break, says, “Thank you.”

“After the shooting, it was the Muslims that came together for us in support, and … walked with us. You raised money. You paid for all the funerals … Anyway. Thank you.”

Abellera is extraordinary in this scene. It is as though Perlah is taking off a skin. Both women are visibly emotional, but the scene never becomes too big; it is just a beat among many, stating very plainly what most narratives about Jewish suffering obscure – that we are part of a larger collective, and that the texture of our grief doesn’t make it any greater or any less.

It has always been Muslim friends who have been the first to check on me when antisemitism is in the news, and to stand up against hateful speech and action; just as I would like to think that I have always stood by them. We know what it feels like to be pitted against one another, when the thing about being minoritised is that you have something in common.

In the immediate wake of the Bondi attacks – in which ordinary Australians ran towards, not away from a threat to the Jewish people – Sydney’s Muslim leaders announced they would refuse to receive the bodies of the attackers. It was a statement of solidarity much more profound than the politicking that has used antisemitism as a cudgel around speech.

If antisemitic violence has shown us anything, it is paradoxically that by and large we are sheltered by a community that doesn’t need any special taskforces, special laws, or special instructions to protect us.

The Pitt is not a particularly subtle show – with a character named Doctor Rabbi, it probably isn’t trying to be. But in an exhausting and sometimes demoralising cultural landscape, some things are worth simply saying out loud. Taking other people’s medication is “a real big no-no”. You shouldn’t shove beads up your nose. And in solidarity, there is plentiful grace to be found. It goes a small way towards healing to acknowledge it.

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