Pittsburgh Victims Cecil And David Rosenthal Were Brothers Bound By Love
Cecil Rosenthal was one of the victims of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. Image by Heather Shiwarski
By Aiden Pink October 28, 2018
Brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal were named Sunday as two of the victims of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue the day before.
Cecil, 59, “was kind of a fixture in our community,” Rabbi Seth Adelson of nearby Congregation Beth Shalom told the Forward.
Cecil and his brother David, 54, lived together in an apartment in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. They were both mentally challenged, a friend told the Pittsburgh Tribune.
Cecil “was really a shul guy. He loved synagogue,” Adelson said. Although Cecil was a regular greeter at Tree of Life, he would also pray at Beth Shalom in the evenings.
Adelson said he had just spoken on Thursday with Cecil, who was returning a beginners’ Hebrew textbook he had borrowed. “He was just a real sweetheart of a guy,” Adelson said.
The Rosenthals were mourned by ACHIEVA, a local disability group that worked with them.
“Cecil’s laugh was infectious. David was so kind and had such a gentle spirit. Together, they looked out for one another,” ACHIEVA vice president Chris Schopf told the Tribune. “They were inseparable. Most of all, they were kind, good people with a strong faith and respect for everyone around.”
The Rosenthal’s neighbor, Raye Coffey, also had praise for the brothers.
“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. But both were … to die like this is horrendous.”
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
