‘I lost a brother’: Pittsburgh Jewish community mourns, buries shooting victims

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Pittsburgh’s Jewish community began burying its dead Tuesday in the wake of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States.

The casket of Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, a family doctor known for his caring and kindness, was brought to the Jewish Community Center in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood for the first of 11 funerals. Two police vehicles were parked at a side door, and two more were posted at the main entrance.

Less than two miles away, hundreds of mourners dressed mostly in black converged on the city’s oldest and largest synagogue, Rodef Shalom, for the funeral of Cecil and David Rosenthal, intellectually disabled brothers in their 50s.

At the JCC, a line stretched around the block as mourners — some in white medical coats, some wearing yarmulkes, black hats or head scarves — passed beneath the blue Romanesque arches into the brick building, an American flag nearby fluttering at half-staff.

Wearing a tallit and yarmulke, Rabbi Doris Dayan from Rabinovitz’s Dor Chadash Reconstructionist community began the service by saying that “praise is the reality that helps us accept what is” and leading those assembled in the traditional prayer, “Baruch Dayan Ha’emet.”

Mark, a childhood friend of Rabinowitz, said their friendship was inevitable: “We were lined up by size.”

Rabinowitz, 66, had a family medicine practice and was affiliated with UPMC Shadyside hospital. The UPMC hospital system described him as one of its “kindest physicians.”

Rabinowitz was a go-to doctor for HIV patients in the epidemic’s early and desperate days, a physician who “always hugged us as we left his office,” according to Michael Kerr, who credits Rabinowitz with helping him survive.

“Thank you,” Kerr wrote on Facebook, “for having always been there during the most terrifying and frightening time of my life. … You are one of my heroes.”

In a eulogy with more laughs than tears, the fellow doctor said that at a time when physicians became specialists, Rabinowitz became a family practitioner because of his commitment to humanity. The friend mentioned Rabinowitz’s inexpiable love for Abbot and Costello and his seriousness as a student.

“Laughter was the key to our friendship, but it sometimes got us in trouble,” he says.

Dr. Kenneth Selco, Rabinowitz’s medical partner, recalled their meeting over intramural football and said he felt like he had “lost a brother.”

Selco joined Rabinowitz in 1986, when the AIDS epidemic was at its height. The two family practitioners ran the third largest AIDS clinic in the area. He also recalls Rabinowitz’s commitment to volunteering and charity, riding his bike hundreds of miles to raise funds.

Selco closed his remarks recalling Rabinowitz’s words: “Death is not the worst outcome, long suffering is.”

At Rodef Shalom, mourners remembered “the boys,” brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal.

With a backdrop of colorful stained glass windows with biblical themes, Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers addressed the massive turnout, saying no matter how early he arrived to the synagogue, the brothers were already there.

“If you could open up a picture dictionary and look for the definition of ‘beautiful souls,’ the pictures of Cecil and David would be there,” said the rabbi.

What do you say to the grieving parents who lost their children, he wondered. “You gave us the gift of Cecil and David and we say thank you. The gift was given back too soon,” he said. Their spirits will always remain there, he said, and asked the congregation to rise for the memorial prayer, “El Maale Rachamim.”

The mixed gender, interfaith congregation answered with “Amen.”

Among the mourners was Kate Lederman. She grew up in the Tree of Life synagogue, where Saturday’s massacre took place, and celebrated all of her milestones there. She recently gave birth.

“I was named there, bat mitzvahed there, married there. And my whole life was in that synagogue. Same with my father. And we knew Cecil and David. We knew all of them. This should be a week of pure joy having a baby, but it’s a week of terror,” she said. “We were supposed to have our baby naming there, but we’re going to do it at home.”

Also paying his respects was Dr. Abe Friedman, who typically sat in the back row of Tree of Life with the Rosenthal brothers but was late to the service on Saturday and was not there when the gunman opened fire. As he stood in line at the funeral Tuesday with his wife, he wondered why he had been spared.

“Why did things fall into place for me?” he asked. “I usually sit in the back row. In the last row, everyone got killed.”

David, 54, and Cecil, 59, lived at a building run by Achieva, a disability-services organization that had worked with the brothers for years. David had worked with Achieva’s cleaning service and at Goodwill Industries, and Cecil was hoping to start a job soon at a workplace-services company, Achieva spokeswoman Lisa Razza told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

David was quieter than Cecil, who had a sociable personality that earned him a reputation as “the honorary mayor of Squirrel Hill,” a historic Jewish enclave in Pittsburgh.

“They were lovely souls, and they lived for the congregation” at Tree of Life, said Brian Schreiber, a member who is also president of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh.

A funeral was also set Tuesday for Daniel Stein, a man seen as part of the core of his congregation.

Other victims’ funerals have been scheduled through Friday in a week of mourning, anguish, and questions about the rampage at Tree of Life synagogue that authorities say was carried out Saturday by a gunman who raged against Jews.

US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump planned to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday to “express the support of the American people and to grieve with the Pittsburgh community,” the White House said.

The plan elicited mixed feelings in Pittsburgh.

Myers, the Tree of Life rabbi, told CNN that the president is “certainly welcome,” while Democratic Mayor Bill Peduto asked Trump not to come while the city was burying its dead.

Some other people, including shooting survivor Barry Werber, weren’t keen on a visit from a president who has embraced the politically fraught term “nationalist.” Some have accused the president of helping to create the corrosive political atmosphere that may have led to the violence.

The man arrested in the massacre, Robert Gregory Bowers, appeared briefly Monday in federal court, where he was ordered held without bail for a preliminary hearing on Thursday. He did not enter a plea. The 46-year-old truck driver faces hate-crime charges that could bring the death penalty.

The attack killed some of the synagogue’s most dedicated members. The oldest victim was 97-year-old Rose Mallinger. At 54, David Rosenthal was the youngest.

Stein, 71, was a visible member of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, where he was the men’s club president at Tree of Life. He was among a trio of members who made up the “religious heart” of New Light Congregation, one of three congregations that worship at the synagogue, co-president Stephen Cohen said.

Stein’s nephew Steven Halle told the Tribune-Review that his uncle had a dry sense of humor and a willingness to help anybody.

“He was somebody that everybody liked,” Halle said.