Image by Getty Images

A Jewish 20-year-old sophomore at the U.S. Naval Academy who was killed in Tuesday’s Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia was given full military honors at his funeral, which was attended by 160 Navy midshipmen.

The funeral for Justin Zemser of Rockaway, Queens, who aspired to be a Navy SEAL, was held at the Boulevard-Riverside-Hewlett chapel on Long Island Friday morning. Zemser’s commanding officer Capt. Brady Soublet called the sophomore a “phenomenal young man” at the ceremony, which featured a bugler and a naval burial detail, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The naval academy’s Jewish chaplain, Lt. Yonatan Warren, served as burial rabbi.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Zemser, who was one of eight passengers killed aboard a northbound Amtrak train that derailed and injured dozens of passengers, was vice president of the naval academy’s Jewish Midshipmen Club and a wide receiver on the school’s sprint football team.

He was a popular student who was lauded as mature and intelligent by friends, family and naval academy colleagues, NBC New York reported, and was en route to his home in Queens on Tuesday night.

“He was the captain. He was the kid. He was basically like the face of Rockaway,” said Frank Kalnberg, Zemser’s friend and football teammate at Beach Channel High School in Rockaway Park, Queens for three years.

The funeral for Jewish 39-year-old Rachel Jacobs, a start-up CEO who was also killed in the crash, was set for Monday in her hometown of Southfield, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. A memorial service for Jacobs, who lived in Manhattan with her husband and young son, will be held Saturday at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

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. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount