Eleven people were killed on Saturday when a gunman entered Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire on the congregants. The victims ranged in age from 54 to 97; eight were men, three were women. Two of them were brothers, and two were a married couple.
Chuck Diamond was a rabbi at Tree of Life until about a year ago, and he remains a member of the community, living just around the corner from the synagogue. He knew many of the victims.
“These are wonderful people, good souls, who were just coming to synagogue as the usually did,” he told NPR on Sunday. “Synagogue was just getting started and mostly elderly people who come there are there at the beginning, and you could count on them every week for coming. … It’s such a crime that their lives were taken from us.”
The names of the victims were released on Sunday morning by the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner. Here are some of their stories, as we learn them.
Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill, was the oldest of the victims.
Diamond told NPR that Rose “was in her 90s, but she was one of the younger ones among us, I have to tell you, in terms of her spirit. Rose was wonderful.”
Daniel Stein, 71, lived in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He is the former president of the New Light Congregation, a Conservative synagogue that held services at Tree of Life.
He was remembered for his kindness.
“He was always willing to help anybody,” his nephew Steven Halle told TribLIVE, formerly the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “He was somebody that everybody liked, very dry sense of humor and recently had a grandson who loved him.”
Melvin Wax, 88, also of Squirrel Hill, was a remembered as a pillar of the New Light Congregation.
“He was such a kind, kind person,” his friend and fellow congregant Myron Snider told The Associated Press. “When my daughters were younger, they would go to him, and he would help them with their federal income tax every year. Never charged them.”
“He and I used to, at the end of services, try to tell a joke or two to each other. Most of the time they were clean jokes. Most of the time. I won’t say all the time. But most of the time.”
Snider said Wax was a bit hard of hearing, and unfailingly attended Friday, Saturday, and Sunday services, filling in at nearly every role if someone didn’t show up.
“Just a sweet, sweet guy,” he said.
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood Borough, was a family doctor.
He practiced in a “small, cozy office in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood,” TribLIVE reporter Ben Schmitt wrote in a personal remembrance. Rabinowitz was his father’s doctor, and his own.
Schmitt recalled how his father became ill on a trip to India, and called back to Rabinowitz in Pittsburgh for advice. The doctor called his father every day for the rest of his trip to check in on his health.
“I felt like I was in such competent, caring hands,” Schmitt’s father said. “Such a kind and gentle man.”
Rabinowitz also was the personal physician to former Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Lawrence Claus, who released a statement on Sunday remembering him.
“Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz … was truly a trusted confidant and healer who could always be counted upon to provide sage advice whenever he was consulted on medical matters, usually providing that advice with a touch of genuine humor,” said Claus, according to CBS affiliate KDKA. “He had a truly uplifting demeanor, and as a practicing physician he was among the very best.”
Cecil Rosenthal, 59, and David Rosenthal, 54, were brothers who shared an apartment in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
Raye Coffey, a close friend and former neighbor of the Rosenthals’ parents, toldTribLIVE that the Rosenthals spent a lot of time in her house when they were younger. She said the brothers faced mental challenges and were fixtures at Tree of Life, where Cecil was a greeter.
“Cecil was always a big brother. He was very warm and very loving. Whenever he would see us, he would always say, ‘Hi, Coffeys!’ ”
“David was quieter,” she said. “But both were … to die like this is horrendous.”
ACHIEVA, an organization that works with people with disabilities said that the brothers were well-respected members of its community. Chris Schopf, who runs the group’s residential programs, said the brothers never missed a Saturday at Tree of Life.
“If they were here they would tell you that is where they were supposed to be,” Schopf said in a statement. “Cecil’s laugh was infectious. David was so kind and had such a gentle spirit. Together, they looked out for one another. They were inseparable. Most of all, they were kind, good people with a strong faith and respect for everyone around.”
Bernice Simon, 84, and Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg were remembered by neighbors as sweet, kind, and generous.
They were married at the Tree of Life synagogue in December 1956, according to TribLIVE.
“A loving couple and they’ve been together forever,” longtime friend and neighbor Michael Stepaniak told the news site. “I hope they didn’t suffer much and I miss them terribly.”
Joyce Fienberg, 75, lived in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, and grew up in Toronto. She had two sons and was remembered as a proud grandmother.
“[She was] the most amazing and giving person,” her brother, Bob Libman, told the CBC.
Fienberg was a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center for more than 25 years.
In a statement on Sunday, the center called her “a cherished friend” and “an engaging, elegant, and warm person.”
Gaea Leinhardt, professor emerita at Pitt, called Fienberg her best friend and told The Washington Post that she had a way of putting teachers at ease when she visited their classrooms.
“She was very intellectual,” Leinhardt said. “But also people would just always open up to her in a very easy way. She was an ideal observer.”
Her husband, internationally celebrated statistician Stephen Fienberg, died in 2016.
Leinhardt told the Post that Fienberg had been especially involved at Tree of Life since her husband’s death. “I just can’t say how terribly sad I am that this person isn’t in the world anymore.”
Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township, shared a dentistry practice with his wife.
The two met as dental students at the University of Pittsburgh, the Post reports, and they volunteered with Catholic Charities’ dental clinic. He was said to be an avid runner and had been going to services at Tree of Life more often recently.
Irving Younger, 69, ran a real estate business in Squirrel Hill for many years, and was also a youth football and baseball coach.
Tina Prizner, who lived next door to Younger in the Mt. Washington neighborhood, remembered him as “the most wonderful dad and grandpa” and as a devoted member of his congregation.
“He went every day. He was an usher at his synagogue, and he never missed a day,” she told TribLIVE. “He was a beautiful person, a beautiful soul.”
Second photo: Jerry Rabinowitz in 2013. Photo courtesy of his family.
Btw I know people saying “rest in peace” mean nothing but well, but RIP is
a Christian expression so please say “may their memory be a blessing,” a
Jewish expression of condolence. Let’s recognize and honor the victims’
Jewishness that their killer hated so much.
My doctor Jerry Rabinowitz was among those killed in the Pittsburgh synogogue shooting. He took care of me up until I left Pittsburgh for NYC in 2004. In the old days for HIV patients in PIttsburgh he was to one to go to. Basically before there was effective treatment for fighting HIV itself, he was known in the community for keeping us alive the longest. He often held our hands (without rubber gloves) and always hugged us as we left his office.
We made a deal about my T cells in that I didn’t want to know the numbers visit to visit because I knew I would fret with every little fluctuation and I also knew that AZT was not working for my friends. The deal was that he would just let me know at some point when the T cell numbers meant I needed to start on medications. The numbers were his job and my job was to finish my masters thesis and get a job with insurance and try not to go crazy.
I got lucky beyond words – because when he gently told me around November 1995 that it was time to begin taking medications – there was an ACTG trial for two HIV medications that saved my life. One of which I still take today.
Thank you to ACT UP for getting these drugs into a safe but effect expidited research protocol. You saved my life.
And thank you Dr. Rabinowitiz for having always been there during the most terrifying and frightening time of my life. You will be remembered by me always. You are one of my heroes just like the early ACT UP warriors- some of which I now call friend. – Michael Kerr.
i am shaking a lot right now and my heart is in my mouth and i’ve been crying on and off and on and off for the past two weeks, and i know that none of you give a fuck about brazil, and that none of you care about politics outside of the ones that directly affect you, but i am terrified. as a bissexual, socialist, umbandista, brazilian woman, i am terrified. and i am begging you to care.
in this year, we hold presidential elections. these elections are the most important in the history of brazil, for a very simple reason: now, that we are on the second round, we either elect a far-right candidate with authoritarian tendencies who flirts with fascism, or we elect a center-left candidate who belongs to the party that was in power for from 2002-2016, before a coup occurred mid 2016.
one of the candidates is fernando haddad, the man seen on this gif:
he was the mayor of são paulo, has been called by the new york times a ‘visionary’, was considered the greatest mayor of latin america, as his time as minister of education made over 100 federal, free institutes, ensured that the history of africa was taught in schools. he has a bacharel degree in law, a masters in economy and a phd in philosophy. he is currently a professor at an university. he gave free buses to children in public education, who could not afford it otherwise, lowered the corruption in the state of são paulo, created a better system for women to denounce harrassment and assault, and overall did a lot of good. i’m not going to spend 3 hours finding different sources for this, because you all don’t actually care.
the other candidate, is jair bolsonaro, and he is not the “tropical trump”, he is not our version of berlusconi. he is worse.
he has praised general carlos alberto brilhante ustra, who is known as the mastermind behind the tortures that occurred during the dictatorship. when he praised him, he did so when voting to impeach our former president dilma rouseff, who was tortured during the dictatorship, and fought for freedom. he has said that “if the crisis gets worse, we’ll shut down the congress” and install a dictatorship. he has said that the dictatorship should have killed more people, and tortured less. that it should have killed 30.000 people. that it should have killed our then president fernando henrique cardoso. he has said that his son would never marry a black woman because he gave him education. he has said that gay people are only gay because they were not beaten as children. he has said that indigenous people are lazy and greedy, that immigrants are the scum of the earth. he has said that women should earn less because they get pregnant. he has said that he would not rape a congresswoman, maria do rosário, because she is not worthy of it. he has said that his daughter is a woman because he got weak and could not produce another man. are you horrified yet? do you understand the problem yet? do you care yet?
in the beginning of the year, marielle franco, a poor, black, bissexual politician was executed. a street was named after her. here’s what people in his party did:
he is leading the polls currently, around 54-58% against 42-46%. ever since the first round of elections, last sunday (07/10), over 50 cases of assaults to people against bolsonaro have been reported.
here are some of them:
a black man was stabbed to death 12 times for saying he voted for haddad.
a woman had a swastika carved onto her belly for walking around with a shirt that said “ele não”, not him, the name of a campaign against bolsonaro.
a swastika was painted in front of a university, alongside the saying “get out blacks”
in different stadiums, football crowds sing “hey, fruit, beware, bolsonaro is going to kill f*gs”
to make things more worrying, the united states, who has knowingly backed up a military coup in 1964, has donated 96 BULLETPROOF MOBILS TO THE BRAZILIAN ARMY.
here are some cartoons on american newspapers:
if you want to get informed, if you care enough to do so, here are some sources in english:
[The idea of 7th season Jadzia being promoted to captain of a ship and thus only being in some DS9 episodes would have been a good one. It could have built on the character work from “Change of Heart.” The promotion would have gone to Worf, but instead they pass him over for her. That would have created believable, complex, but ultimately surmountable tension between Worf and Jadzia.]
Thiiiiiis. Also, if Jadzia had lived she and Worf could have had a child. Imagine the emotional stakes if the baby was on DS9 for a while with Worf since it’s a slightly more stable environment than a starship, though barely, before having to be evacuated to the Trill homeworld to be with Jadzia’s family. Ezri could even have made an appearance as counselor on board the evacuating ship, assuring Worf that she will make sure the infant would be cared for until arrival. We would have gotten to see Worf as a father, seeing him manage a wartime long-distance relationship with his wife, the two of them more determined than ever to win the war so their child can grow up in peace.
Jadzia could have died at the final battle in a brave sacrifice, showing us just how high the stakes are. Maybe she could message the Defiant one last time, telling them what she’s about to do, and while Benjamin hesitates Worf doesn’t skip a beat, telling her that he will sing songs of her courage. Jadzia says, with infinite emotion and a bit of humor, that she knows he will. We see her ship destroyed and Worf sings to her honor as the battle rages on. We see a different side emerge later on, however, when he is alone and views her prerecorded good-bye message.
We can even have Ezri as the new Dax by having Jadzia and the other survivors of her ship being beamed away in emergency transport, but Jadzia is too gravely wounded to wait for a more suitable host. Ezri can consent to be implanted with the symbiont out of compassion even though it was not something she wanted or was prepared for, just like in the original Season 7. Then she can give Jadzia’s final words to Worf, Benjamin, Julian, Kira, Quark and everyone, telling them that she was thinking of them to the last.
But when Worf asks her to go see the baby with him, Ezri hesitates a long moment before saying “no.” His wife is dead, she tells him gently, and Ezri has her own life to live as Dax. She’ll meet the child later on to tell them more about their mother, but it would be cruel to everyone involved for her to be involved deeply in the child’s life. Besides, she says with chirpy attempted humor, she can barely walk around safely and won’t be leaving the symbiont center for a good while.
Then it finally hits Worf that his wife is gone, the mother of his child is never coming back, and as we gaze into his stricken eyes we see the weight of the future the two of them must face without her. The losses of this war are irrevocable and devastating.
When Worf accepts the position of the Federation’s Ambassador to Klingon he says he will be in regular communication with the child and travel often to Trill, and when the child is older they will join him on Kronos to be brought up in the other half of their heritage. Worf expresses his determination to be both a mother and father to their child, and to let them know what a brave and honorable woman their mother was. Benjamin, with great feeling, tells Worf he will be an amazing father.
Like, let Jadzia have agency in her own death instead of the
egregious random fridging we got. Let Benjamin’s insistence that they
push the final offense on Cardassia have actual, tangible consequences.
Jadzia’s death in battle would have shown the stakes of war better than
any number of ships exploding on screen.
Wikipedia also tells me the Nakam caused zero known deaths and were incompetent buffoons whose murderous plans were, most likely, sabotaged by other Jewish people or their own bumbling ways. Why would their existence be an antisemitic talking point? The Nazis killed six million Jewish people, is that an anti-white talking point? Do you think the actions of the Nazis generalize to all white people, and that white people should be killed as a result? Murderers–including inept would-be murderers in the Nakam’s case–exist in every group of people, but I can’t help but notice their actions are generalized to their racial/ethnic group only when they belong to marginalized groups.
“The blade is a phallic symbol, and Kylo penetrating her with it foreshadows their sexual union. Rey’s gaping wound symbolizes her lost virginity, and also her vagina with which she will give birth to his Skywalker babies.”
Rose taking comfort under fire in the fact that if she and Paige die, they die together
(Consider everything in the notes a potential spoiler)
Oh wow, this book has actual, proper grieving scenes for the characters’ losses in battle! Who’d have thought such a thing was possible? Everyone knows this is so hard, even billion-dollar grossing movies have characters grinning like idiots with no one ever shedding a tear after losing of most of their friends and comrades.
That said, who thought it was a good idea to go out and fly the exact same mission again when a TIE fighter had escaped in the previous battle and the enemy was ready for them? Without, say, a fighter escort to fight off the TIEs? If the Resistance couldn’t properly protect their supply ships they should have admitted they were overextended and declined to help any further, or deveoped a different method so the enemy wouldn’t see them coming. You can’t just send out your crew hoping for the best, ffs, especially when this mission was about giving aid to an outside group and was not vital to the Resistance’s work. There was no mention of Atterra being of particular strategic importance to dislodge the First Order.
If the Resistance were at all serious about Atterra, why not go to the Senate? By this point members of the Resistance had seen more than enough to testify before the Senate about the abuses in the Atterra system. Whatever happened to those spy droids in the opening mission? They must have gathered some evidence, as the Resistance who visited the planet must have. They had two real live Atterran witnesses right there!
And let’s say they didn’t go to the Republic because the Senate was willing to let the FO do whatever the fuck they liked in their own territory, blockade entire populations into dying of thirst, dissolve the bodies of their victims in the acid oceans. If so, the Resistance was violating its own mandate and potentially starting a war with the FO. It would have been better to fly humanitarian missions to evacuate the Atterrans instead, because there is no indication the Bravo Rising resistance group could hold territory and keep their supply lines open even if they defeated the FO.
Argh. I like the worldbuilding and character development in this book but the story makes no sense once you really look at it.
Rose thinking she’d rather blow herself and Paige up than let either of them be taken by the First Order
Everyone remember when Kylo Ren ordered the slaughter of a civilian village called Tuanul? Notice that not only men were in the village, but woman, eldery and children too?
In fact if you look up at the picture you can even see some of them crying.
Remember how Finn refused to fire on the unarmed civilians that Kylo Ren ordered the Stormtroopers to kill and had been so traumatized that he left the first Order and then fought against them while Kylo went on to lead them?
Remember how people still think Kylo is not a complete and Finn ins’t a hero? Remember how people excused this by saying war is war and didn’t know the difference between self defense and cold blooded murder?
Yeah, fuck those people.
There’s the Kylo apologists’ “enemy combatants.” Absolute fuckers.
L.J.'s Obsessions 