Relocated widower among the missing

On a recent morning before communal prayers at a synagogue, Harry Rosenberg told a friend that his new beachfront condo in Florida offered a much-needed change of scenery after an awful year in which he lost his wife to cancer and both parents to COVID-19 in New York.

The home in Surfside was to be a gathering spot for visiting children and grandchildren, and his daughter and son-inlaw were doing just that when they traveled to the condo last week from New Jersey to join him for the Sabbath.

Hours later, the building collapsed, and all three family members are missing in the rubble.

Their cascading tragedies — cancer, COVID -19 and now the flattening of the building — are reminders of the excruciating toll the collapse has taken on families after what was already a grief-filled year.

“He told me, ‘It is the next chapter of my life.’ He went through hell. His parents passed away. His wife passed away,” said Steve Eisenberg, who saw the 52-year-old asset manager last week at the synagogue.

Rosenberg “came to Florida to breathe a little bit,” said Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar, founder of the Shul of Bal Harbour, the synagogue he joined.

When the building tumbled to the ground, Rosenberg’s daughter, Malky Weisz, 27, and her husband, Benny Weisz, 32, had just arrived for their visit.

Described as a family man and observant Jew, Rosenberg raised funds and launched a young adult center for mental healing in Israel.

Before his wife died last summer of a brain tumor, he spent three years taking care of her, said Maurice Wachsmann, a longtime friend. Months after her death came more heartache: Rosenberg’s father died of COVID -19 in January, and weeks later his mother died of the same.

“It was extremely difficult,” Wachsmann said. “He did everything for his parents. Family first, before everything.”

Rosenberg decided to move to Florida, first renting smaller apartments and finally buying the condo in Surfside last month.

In his short time in Florida, he was already known by people in the community. Fellow members of the synagogue and his family are now anxiously awaiting any news from the scene.