Eleven people were killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday. The oldest was 97. The youngest was 54. They included two brothers and a husband and wife. According to Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light Congregation: “The loss is incalculable.”

Melvin Wax

Fellow members of the New Light Congregation, which rented space in the lower level of the synagogue, said Wax was a kind man and a pillar of the group, filling just about every role except cantor.

Myron Snider spoke late on Saturday about his friend. He said “Mel”, an 88-year-old retired accountant, was unfailingly generous.

“He was such a kind, kind person,” said Snider, chairman of the congregation’s cemetery committee. “When my daughters were younger, they would go to him, and he would help them with their federal income tax every year. Never charged them.

“He and I used to, at the end of services, try to tell a joke or two to each other. Most of the time they were clean jokes. Most of the time. I won’t say all the time. But most of the time.”

New Light moved to the Tree of Life building about a year ago, when the congregation of about 100 mostly older members could no longer afford its own space, said administrative assistant Marilyn Honigsberg. She said Wax, who lost his wife Sandra in 2016, was always there when services began at 9.45am.

Snider said Wax, who was slightly hard of hearing, “went Friday night, Saturday and Sunday, when there were Sunday services. If somebody didn’t come that was supposed to lead services, he could lead the services and do everything. He knew how to do everything at the synagogue. He was really a very learned person.”

Snider, a retired pharmacist, had just been released from a six-week hospital stay for pneumonia and was not at Saturday’s services.

“He called my wife to get my phone number in the hospital so he could talk to me,” Snider said. “Just a sweet, sweet guy.”

Jerry Rabinowitz

Former Allegheny county deputy district attorney Law Claus remembered Jerry Rabinowitz, a 66-year-old personal physician, as more than a doctor for him and his family for the last three decades.

“He was truly a trusted confidant and healer,” he wrote in an email to his former co-workers on Sunday. “Dr Jerry Rabinowitz … could always be counted upon to provide sage advice whenever he was consulted on medical matters, usually providing that advice with a touch of genuine humor. He had a truly uplifting demeanor, and as a practicing physician he was among the very best.”

Rabinowitz, a family practitioner at UPMC Shadyside, was remembered there as one of its “kindest physicians”. The hospital said in a statement: “The UPMC family, in particular UPMC Shadyside, cannot even begin to express the sadness and grief we feel over the loss.”

Tami Minnier, UPMC chief quality officer, wrote in a statement on Twitter: “Those of us who worked with him respected and admired his devotion to his work and faith. His loss is devastating.”

Joyce Fienberg

Joyce Fienberg and her late husband, Stephen, were intellectual powerhouses. Those who knew them said they were the kind of people who used such intellect to help others.

The 75-year-old spent most of her career at the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research and Development Center, retiring in 2008 from her job as a researcher looking at learning in the classroom and in museums. She worked on several projects including studying the practices of highly effective teachers.

Dr Gaea Leinhardt, Fienberg’s research partner for decades, said she was devastated by the murder of her colleague and friend.

“Joyce was a magnificent, generous, caring, and profoundly thoughtful human being,” she said.

Stephen, who died in 2016, was a renowned professor of statistics and social science at Carnegie Mellon University whose work was used in shaping national policies in forensic science, education and criminal justice.

The couple married in 1965 and moved to Pittsburgh in the early 1980s. Joyce began her work at the center in 1983. The couple had two sons and several grandchildren.

Daniel Stein

A visible member of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, Stein was a leader in the New Light Congregation. His wife, Sharyn, is the membership vice-president of the area’s Hadassah chapter.

“Their Judaism is very important to them, and to him,” said chapter co-president Nancy Shuman. “Both of them were very passionate about the community and Israel.”

Stein, 71, was among a corps of New Light members who with Wax and Richard Gottfried, 65 – another victim – made up “the religious heart” of the congregation, helping the rabbi with anything and everything that needed to be done to hold services, Cohen, the congregation co-president, said.

Stein’s nephew Steven Halle told the Tribune-Review that his uncle “was always willing to help anybody”.

With his generous spirit and dry sense of humor, “he was somebody that everybody liked,” Halle said.

Flowers and cards at a makeshift memorial. Photograph: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Richard Gottfried

The 65-year-old was a devoted member of the New Light Congregation, going to the synagogue every Saturday morning without fail. Stephen Cohen, co-president, said Gottfried and another member who was also killed were the “religious heart of our congregation”.

“They led the service, they maintained the Torah, they did what needed to be done with the rabbi to make services happen,” Cohen said.

The 65-year-old was preparing for a new chapter in his life. A dentist who often did charity work seeing patients who could not afford dental care, he was preparing to retire in the next few months. He ran a dental office with his wife, Peg Durachko.

Cecil Rosenthal and David Rosenthal

The brothers went through life together with help from a disability services organization. An important part of that life was the Tree of Life synagogue, where they never missed Saturday services, people who knew them said.

“If they were here, they would tell you that is where they were supposed to be,” Chris Schopf, a vice-president of the organization Achieva, said in a statement. Achieva provides help with daily living, employment and other needs. It had worked for years with Cecil, 59, and David, 54.

They lived semi-independently, and Cecil was up for all sorts of activities: a concert, lunch at Eat ’n Park, a regional restaurant chain known for its smiley-face cookies, even a trip to the Duquesne University dining hall, recalled David DeFelice, a Duquesne senior who was paired with him in a buddies program.

“He was a very gregarious person,” DeFelice said, “loved being social, loved people … You could put him any situation, and he’d make it work,” chatting about the weather or asking students about their parents and talking about his own. When DeFelice recognized Hebrew letters on Cecil’s calendar, the older man was delighted to learn that his buddy was also Jewish. He soon invited him to Tree of Life. DeFelice joined him on a couple of occasions and could see Cecil cherished his faith and the sense of community he found at temple.

Emeritus Rabbi Alvin Berkun saw that, too, in Cecil and his brother. “They really found a home at the synagogue, and people reciprocated,” he said.

Cecil carried a photo in his wallet of David, whom Schopf remembered as a man with “such a gentle spirit”.

“Together, they looked out for each other,” she said. “Most of all, they were kind, good people with a strong faith and respect for everyone around.”

The two left an impression on state representative David Frankel, who sometimes attends services at Tree of Life and whose chief of staff is the Rosenthals’ sister.

“They were very sweet, gentle, caring men,” Frankel said. “I know that this community will really mourn their loss because they were such special people.”

Bernice Simon and Sylvan Simon

Bernice and Sylvan Simon were always ready to help other people, longtime friend and neighbor Jo Stepaniak said, and “they always did it with a smile and always did it with graciousness”.

“Anything that they could do, and they did it as a team,” she said.

The Simons were fixtures in the townhome community on the outskirts of Pittsburgh where they had lived for decades. She had served on the board and he was a familiar face from his walks around the neighborhood, with the couple’s dog.

Sylvan, 86, was a retired accountant with a good sense of humor, the kind of person his former rabbi felt comfortable joking with after Sylvan broke his arm a couple of weeks ago. The rabbi emeritus, Alvin Berkun, quipped that Sylvan had to get better so he could once again lift the Torah, the Jewish holy scripture.

Bernice, 84, a former nurse, loved classical music and devoted time to charitable work, according to Stepaniak and neighbor Inez Miller. And both Simons cared deeply about Tree of Life synagogue.

“They were very devoted, an active, steady presence,” Berkun said. The Simons had married there in a candlelight ceremony nearly 62 years ago, according to the Tribune-Review.

Tragedy has struck their family before: one of the couple’s sons died in a 2010 motorcycle accident in California. And now the Simons’ deaths are reverberating through their family and community.

“Bernice and Sylvan were very good, good-hearted, upstanding, honest, gracious, generous people. They were very dignified and compassionate,” Stepaniak said, her voice breaking. “Best neighbors that you could ask for.”

Stars of David with names of some of those killed, at a memorial outside the synagogue. Photograph: Gene J Puskar/AP

Rose Mallinger

Former Tree of Life rabbi Chuck Diamond said he worried about Rose Mallinger as soon as he heard about the shooting. The 97-year-old had almost unfailingly attended services for decades, he told the Washington Post, and was among the first to walk in.

“I feel a part of me died in that building,” Diamond said.

She was the oldest of those killed in Saturday’s shooting at Tree of Life, Brian Schreiber told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and he regularly saw her at services. “Rose was really a fixture of the congregation,” Schreiber, president and CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh, told the Post-Gazette.

Her daughter, Andrea Wedner, 61, was among the wounded, a family member said. She remains hospitalized.

Irving Younger

A neighbor in Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington neighborhood remembered Irving Younger as “a really nice guy”. Jonathan Voye told the Post-Gazette Younger, 69, was personable and occasionally spoke with him about family or the weather.

“I’m scared for my kids’ future,” Voye said. “How can you have that much hate for your fellow neighbor?”

Tina Prizner, who told the Tribune-Review she has lived next door to Younger for several years, said he was a “wonderful” father and grandfather.

The one-time real estate company owner “talked about his daughter and his grandson, always, and he never had an unkind word to say about anybody”, she said.