97-Year-Old Rose Mallinger Was ‘So Full Of Life’ And Attended Synagogue Every Week
Image by Getty Images
Correction Appended
Rose Mallinger was 97. But she sure didn’t look or act her age.
Chuck Diamond, a former rabbi at Tree Of Life, said Mallinger, who was the oldest victim of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, would never miss a service.
“She was a synagogue-goer, and not everybody is,” Diamond told the Washington Post. “She’s gone to the synagogue for a lifetime, no matter how many people are there,” Diamond said.
Diamond, said Mallinger’s son was a classmate of his.
Rose Mallinger lived nearby in the heavily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood and was a regular sight on the street and at a local grocery store.
“I feel a part of me died in that building,” he told the Post.
Brian Schreiber, the president of the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh called Mallinger a “fixture of the congregation.”
Schreiber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Mallinger was a vibrant woman who seemed much younger than her age.
“You’ve never met a more vivacious 97-year-old,” Schreiber said. “She was just so full of life. She had so much energy.”
Mallinger’s daughter, Andrea Wedner, 61, was also worshipping at Tree of Life and was wounded in the rampage. She is expected to recover.
Rose Malinger was 97 years old. Born in 1921. Saw & survived so much. Yesterday, murdered in her sanctuary. Praying on Shabbat. The Jewish day of rest. Know her name. https://t.co/uHNXnIAbYF
— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) October 28, 2018
The chief medical examiner of Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County released the names of the 11 victims of the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh Saturday:
Joyce Feinberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69
With Reuters and JTA
Editor’s note, October 30, 11:40 a.m.: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that Rose Mallinger was a Holocaust survivor.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
