Friends Mourn Jewish Families Killed In Costa Rica Plane Crash

Image by YouTube
The Steinberg family of Scarsdale, New York, was wiped out in a plane crash Sunday in Costa Rica. Five other American tourists and the two pilots were also killed.
Now, friends of the families are trying to pick up the pieces.
Jonah Gray, 18, was the best friend of William Steinberg, the middle child, since they were two years old. They played varsity tennis together in high school and pick-up basketball at the Westchester Reform Temple.
“For the first time in my life, I feel like an adult — and I don’t think I’ll ever feel like a kid again,” a stunned Gray told the New York Post. “I keep hoping this is a dream inside a dream.”
“Someone said these kids would change the world and they really would have. Will was incredibly brilliant,” said David Ziman, 19, a friend of William Steinberg’s at the University of Pennsylvania, where they were in the same freshman class.
“The Steinbergs were like a second family to us,” Ziman added. “They were such a brilliant family. I’m at a loss for words. This is beyond anything.”
The plane crash also killed the Weiss family of Florida. Doctors Mitchell and Leslie Weiss were killed with their teenage children Hannah and Ari. Hannah was a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary’s List College.
“She would put aside anything for her friends, that was the most important thing to her,” her roommate, Jillian Axelrod, told the Post.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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 comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag 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 [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.