Julia Hyman, 27, one of two Jewish victims of Monday’s mass shooting in Midtown Manhattan, was remembered as a “remarkable person” during her funeral on Wednesday at Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation located blocks from the site of the shooting.
“I urge you to look around this room,” Rob Pittman, the deceased’s uncle, told Hyman’s parents, Nanci and Craig, the New York Jewish Week reported. “Absorb how many lives your little girl managed to impact and the remarkable person she turned out to be.”
Central Synagogue’s Rabbi Maurice Salth told mourners to “be careful about trying to make this tragedy feel better by saying such things as, ‘at least she went quickly,’ or ‘at least we had her for 27 years,’” the Jewish Week reported. “There is nothing that can make this tragedy better or logical.”
The Cornell University graduate was “deeply loyal to her family and friends, and devoted to them,” the rabbi said, according to the paper. “She took a stand for Israel and continued to do so during what has been a deeply challenging and demanding time for Israel and the Jewish people.”
The family said donations in her honor can be made to Magen David and Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (Friends of the IDF).
