‘It’s real once you hear the names’

A Jewish community leader said learning the identities of the 11 worshipers killed Oct. 27 at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh made the loss from the massacre even more acute.

Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Celeste Van Kirk/Observer-Reporter
Hundreds of people join in an Oct. 27 candlelight vigil at the Sixth Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh to remember 11 people killed at a Squirrel Hill synagogue earlier that day.
“This is an awful, awful hearing for our Jewish community, and especially the families that have been affected,” said Jeff Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh during a press conference where authorities released that information. “It’s real once you hear the names. We’re going to do everything we can to help the families.”
Investigators said the accused gunman brought a military-style assault rifle and three sidearms to use in the slaughter, which was almost without question motivated by an indiscriminate hatred for members of the victims’ religion.
The oldest victim was Rose Mallinger, 97, who was from Squirrel Hill – the historically Jewish neighborhood where the temple is located – as were brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, 59 and 54, Daniel Stein, 71, and Melvin Wax, 88. Other victims from neighborhoods in the city were Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland and Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington.
Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland
Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township
Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood
Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill
David Rosenthal, 54, of Squirrel Hill
Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg
Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg
Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill
Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill
Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, was from Edgewood, a borough that abuts Pittsburgh. Husband and wife Bernice and Sylvan Simon, 84 and 86, were from neighboring Wilkinsburg. Richard Gottfried, 65, was from Ross Township, in the North Hills of Allegheny County.
A total of six other people were wounded, including four Pittsburgh police officers.
The suspect, 46-year-old Robert Bowers of Baldwin, allegedly fired on congregants with an AR-15 assault rifle and several .357 handguns, and kept shooting later during his confrontation with police from the third floor of the building before he surrendered, according to an affidavit outlining criminal charges the FBI filed against him.
U.S. Attorney Scott Brady – the ranking Department of Justice official in the Western District of Pennsylvania – said the assault was “even more heinous” because it took place during a religious service.
“A place of worship is a sacred place,” Brady said. “It’s a place of peace, and a place of grace. It’s a place where community comes together to celebrate that they hold most dear and most sacred.”
An account under Bowers’ name on the website Gab – a social-media platform popular with neo-Fascists, anti-Semites and other far-right fellow travelers – included posts that accused a refugee-assistance organization HIAS of “lik(ing) to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us,” according to one post, which was archived as a screenshot.
The website of the nonprofit HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, says the group was founded in 1881 to help Jews who were “fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe.” In the more than century since, it has established itself as a relief organization with a global presence.
In another of his posts, Bowers called President Trump “a globalist, not a nationalist.”
- ”There is no #MAGA as long as there is a kinfestation,” he said, using an acronym for Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
The last public message on the account came just before police learned of the mid-morning shooting: “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Gideon Bradshaw/Observer-Reporter
Jeffrey Finkelstein, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, addresses reporters Oct. 28 during a briefing in Pittsburgh a day after a gunman killed 11 people at a city synagogue.
Authorities said at this stage of the investigation they believe the reputed shooter was acting alone, and are treating the case as a hate crime, but not domestic terrorism, at this point.
“The distinction between a hate crime and domestic terrorism is – a hate crime is where an individual is animated by a hatred or a certain animus of a certain ethnicity or religious faith,” he added. “And it becomes domestic terrorism where there is an ideology that that person is trying to propagate through violence.”
Bowers was treated at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny General Hospital for multiple gunshot wounds and released into federal custody Oct. 29. Bowers faces numerous federal and state charges, and could receive the death penalty if convicted.
Meanwhile, local Jewish leaders tried to make sense of the tragedy.
Rabbi Mendy Rosenblum, director of Chabad of the South Hills in Mt. Lebanon, said they hope the “synagogues this coming weekend are filled to the rafters” and that no one is intimidated by the weekend’s events.
“It should just be a very loud and clear message to our children, to our communities, to the broader community that our houses of worship must be places of refuge, safe places, and that there’s nobody who can take that away from us,” Rosenblum said.
Rosenblum, who grew up in Squirrel Hill, thinks the community will come together following the tragedy.
“The Jewish community is a very tightly knit community, and while we worship in different places and sometimes in different ways, there’s a closeness. It’s really, really one big family,” Rosenblum said. “We have to respond with acts of love and kindness, acts of light. We have to really, really combat this darkness with acts of light.”
Steve Silverman, president of the Mt. Lebanon Commission and a member of Temple Emanuel of South Hills, said he had no personal connections to the victims, but the massacre was troubling for the region’s entire Jewish community.
“It is tragic that, in our hometown, innocent men and women were murdered solely for being Jewish,” he said. “We appreciate the outpouring of support we have received from our friends and neighbors. We pray for peace and for understanding.”
Staff writer Harry Funk contributed to this story.