Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Melvin Wax, Killed While Leading Synagogue Service, To Be Buried In PIttsburgh

Funerals will be held on Wednesday for two victims of a mass shooting at their Pittsburgh synagogue, including the man who was leading shabbat services when the attack – in which 11 worshipers died – took place.

Melvin Wax, 88, and retired university researcher Joyce Fienberg, 75, will be remembered in separate services, local media said, four days after they were killed in the deadliest ever attack on America’s Jewish community.

The first funerals for victims took place on Tuesday, when President Donald Trump visited the Tree of Life synagogue while thousands protested his presence in the city.

Wax, a retired accountant who had just become a grandfather, was leading shabbat services in the basement when he was shot and killed, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said.

“He was a gentle man. Easygoing, simple, quiet,” his friend Bill Cartiff told the newspaper.

Fienberg spent 25 years as a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center until she retired in 2008.

“She was an engaging, elegant, and warm person,” the center said on Facebook.—Reuters

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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version