Professors, accountants, dentists and mothers
THESE ARE THE 11 VICTIMS OF THE PITTSBURGH SYNAGOGUE MASSACRE
CECIL AND DAVID ROSENTHAL
The brothers went through life together with help from a disability-services organization. And an important part of their lives was the Tree of Life Synagogue, where they never missed a Saturday service, people who knew them say.
“If they were here, they would tell you that is where they were supposed to be,” said Chris Schopf, a vicepresident of the organization Achieva.
Achieva provides help with daily living, employment and other needs, and the organization had worked for years with Cecil, 59, and David, 54. They lived semiindependently.
Cecil, according to his obituary, was known as “the honorary mayor of Squirrel Hill,” and David worked at Goodwill Industries.
“They really found a home at the synagogue, and people reciprocated,” Emeritus Rabbi Alvin Berkun said.
Cecil carried a photo in his wallet of David, whom Schopf remembers as a man with “such a gentle spirit.”
“Together, they looked out for each other,” she said.
BERNICE AND SYLVAN SIMON
Bernice and Sylvan Simon were always ready to help other people, longtime friend and neighbour Jo Stepaniak says, and “they always did it with a smile and always did it with graciousness.”
“Anything that they could do, and they did it as a team,” she said.
The Simons were fixtures in the townhome community on the outskirts of Pittsburgh where they had lived for decades. She’d served on the board, and he was a familiar face from his walks around the neighbourhood.
Sylvan, 86, was a retired accountant with a good sense of humour.
Bernice, 84, a former nurse, loved classical music and devoted time to charitable work, according to Stepaniak and neighbour Inez Miller.
And both Simons cared deeply about Tree of Life Synagogue.
The Simons had married there in a candlelight ceremony nearly 62 years earlier, according to the TribuneReview.
MELVIN WAX
Melvin was always the first to arrive at New Light Congregation in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighbourhood — and the last to leave.
Fellow members of the congregation, which rented space in the lower level of the Tree of Life Synagogue, said Wax was a kind man who could fill just about every role in the congregation except cantor.
“He was a gem. He was a gentleman,” recalled fellow congregant Barry Werber. “There was always a smile on his face.”
Myron Snider said “Mel,” a retired accountant in his 80s, was unfailingly generous and a pillar of the congregation.
“If somebody didn’t come that was supposed to lead services, he could lead the services and do everything. He knew how to do everything at the synagogue. He was really a very learned person,” said Snider, chairman of the congregation’s cemetery committee.
New Light moved to the Tree of Life building about a year ago, when the congregation could no longer afford its own space.
JERRY RABINOWITZ
Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, and his partner in his family medical practice were seemingly destined to spend their professional lives together.
He and Dr. Kenneth Ciesielka had been friends for more than 30 years, since they lived on the same floor at the University of Pennsylvania. Ciesielka was a few years behind Rabinowitz, but whether by fate or design, the two always ended up together. They went to the same college, the same medical school and even had the same residency at UPMC a few years apart.
“He is one of the finest people I’ve ever met. We’ve been in practice together for 30 years and friends longer than that,” Ciesielka said.
“His patients are going to miss him terribly. His family is going to miss him terribly and I am going to miss him. He was just one of the kindest, finest people.”
JOYCE FIENBERG
Joyce Fienberg and her late husband, Stephen, were intellectual powerhouses, but those who knew them say they were the kind of people who used that intellect to help others.
Fienberg, 75, grew up in Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple community. She spent most of her career at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center, retiring in 2008 from her job as a researcher looking at learning in the classroom and in museums.
Dr. Gaea Leinhardt, who was Fienberg’s research partner for decades, said she is devastated by her death.
“Joyce was a magnificent, generous, caring, and profoundly thoughtful human being,” she said.
The research centre’s current director, Charles Perfetti, said Fienberg earned her bachelor’s degree in social psychology from the University of Toronto.
She brought a keen mind, engaging personality and “a certain elegance and dignity” to the centre, Perfetti said.
DANIEL STEIN
Daniel Stein was a visible member of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, where he was a leader in the New Light Congregation and his wife, Sharyn, is the membership vicepresident of the area’s Hadassah chapter.
“Their Judaism is very important to them, and to him,” said chapter co-president Nancy Shuman. “Both of them were very passionate about the community and Israel.”
Stein, 71, was president of the Men’s Club at Tree of Life. He also was among a corps of the New Light members who, along with Wax and Richard Gottfried, 65, made up “the religious heart” of the congregation, said Stephen Cohen, the congregation co-president.
ROSE MALLINGER
Former Tree of Life Rabbi Chuck Diamond said he worried about Rose Mallinger as soon as he heard about the deadly shooting at the synagogue.
The 97-year-old had almost unfailingly attended services for decades, he told The Washington Post, and was among the first to walk in.
“I feel a part of me died in that building,” Diamond said.
She was the oldest of those killed in Saturday’s shooting.
Her daughter, Andrea Wedner, 61, was among the wounded, a family member said. She remains hospitalized.
RICHARD GOTTFRIED
Gottfried ran a dental office with his wife Margaret “Peg” Durachko Gottfried. They met at the University of Pittsburgh as dental students, according to the Washington Post, and opened a practice together in 1984.
Gottfried, who often did charity work seeing patients who could not otherwise afford dental care, was preparing to retire in the next few months.
He, along with Wax and Stein, “led the service, they maintained the Torah, they did what needed to be done with the rabbi to make services happen,” said Stephen Cohen, the congregation co-president.
“He died doing what he liked to do most,” said brother-in-law Don Salvin.
IRVING YOUNGER
A neighbour in Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington neighbourhood remembered Irving Younger as “a really nice guy.”
Jonathan Voye told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Younger, 69, was personable and occasionally spoke about family or the weather.
“I’m scared for my kids’ future,” Voye told the Post-Gazette. “How can you have that much hate for your fellow neighbour?”
Neighbour Tina Prizner said he was a “wonderful” grandfather. The real estate company owner “talked about his daughter and his grandson, always, and he never had an unkind word to say about anybody,’ Prizner told the Tribune-Review.