From Shabbat dinners to ‘Talmudic discourse’: Jewish women killed in NYC shooting leave legacies of faith and family
Wesley LePatner and Julia Hyman were members of New York’s Jewish community
Pall bearers carry the casket of Wesley LePatner, who was killed in Monday’s shooting at 345 Park Avenue, into Central Synagogue ahead of a funeral service on Thursday. Photo by Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Hannah Feuer July 31, 2025
Two Jewish women, 43-year-old Wesley LePatner and 27-year-old Julia Hyman, are being remembered at separate memorial services at Central Synagogue in Manhattan this week after being killed in a shooting Monday.
Police say the suspect, 27-year-old Shane Tamura, opened fire at a Park Avenue office building, killing four people and then himself. Authorities believe the gunman intended to target the office of the National Football League, but took the wrong elevator.
LePatner remembered as a ‘Jewish philanthropic luminary’
Wesley LePatner, an executive at Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, was part of the New York Jewish community as an active synagogue member, parent and board member.
The daughter of two attorneys, she grew up in New York City and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University, where she regularly brought friends together for Shabbat dinner.
“Wes’ bright spirit and passion for the Jewish community touched everyone fortunate enough to know her,” Uri Cohen, the executive director of the Slifka Center for Jewish Life, wrote in an email, reported in the Yale Daily News. “She meant so much to many in the Slifka community as a leader and role model over many years.”
Yale alum Sam Yebri recalled in an Instagram post meeting LePatner at a kosher dining hall and attending her Shabbat dinners, where they had “fierce” debates “over whether LA or NY was the greatest city in the world.” “The world lost an angel and a lioness,” he wrote, remembering her as “one of the city’s Jewish philanthropic luminaries.”
LePatner met her husband, Evan, on their first day of college in 1999. Rabbi Mychal Springer officiated their wedding in 2006, according to a wedding announcement published in The New York Times. Evan recalled LePatner’s study sessions at Yale would often commence at 7 a.m., and she “executed consistently at a level of near-perfection,” but she never bragged. “She was the most lowkey smart person imaginable,” Evan said.
Her father, Lawrence Mittman, recalled that the summer before starting college, LePatner studied Talmud at Drisha under Rabbi David Silber. He was nervous at first that LePatner, having attended secular school all her life, might be behind the other students who studied at Jewish day schools.
“I was amazed every day when she would come home and I would discuss with her what she had learned,” Mittman said at the service. “She had clearly kept up to pace, and indeed, I was so taken by it, I used to drive her to school every day so we could engage in this Talmudic discourse.”
After graduating from Yale with a degree in history, LePatner worked in banking at Goldman Sachs for a decade before joining Blackstone in 2014 to run the firm’s $53 billion real estate fund.
She was a member of the board of the UJA-Federation of New York, which awarded her the Alan C. Greenberg Young Leadership Award at their annual Wall Street Dinner in December 2023. At the awards ceremony, LePatner shared how, growing up, her parents always reminded her that she “was an American, but first and foremost Jewish.”
In a statement, UJA noted LePatner’s commitment to Israel, writing that she led a “solidarity mission” to the country in the wake of the attacks of Oct. 7.
“Israel is Wesley, and Wesley was Israel,” her husband said at the funeral. “Small in size, insanely productive, wrangling with being religious and pragmatic all at once, inclusive of all who want to be inside the tent, fierce in the defense of its people.”
LePatner was also a board member of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, a pluralistic Jewish day school in New York City, where one of her children attends the seventh grade.
The Park East Synagogue in New York City awarded the LePatners the Youth Enrichment Center Award in 2019. Benny Rogosnitzky, cantor at Park East Synagogue, recalled in an interview with JTA that she was “a very active, very involved parent” when her children attended the school affiliated with his congregation.
LePatner was also involved in the founding of the Orthodox Altneu congregation on the Upper East Side. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central and Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt of Altneu co-officiated Thursday’s service in her honor.
“It is a testament to Wesley that a Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi are co-officiating her funeral, a first for both of us,” Rabbi Buchdahl said.
Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt of Altneu said he “had never met anyone in my life who took advantage of time the way Wesley did.” He recalled how LePatner would always ask him with urgency about reserving seats for all the Jewish holidays, and the two would often bump into each other on the way to work.
“Even when you had small talk with Wesley, it was the most intense small talk I’ve ever had in my life,” he said.
Rabbi Goldschmidt’s spouse, Avital, remembered LePatner as a “dear friend, mentor, community member and builder,” she posted to social media, adding that LePatner was “the kindest and sharpest human being.”
“Just a few weeks ago, we sat for lunch and spoke about the future, our children, women’s leadership, Torah, our love for Israel, and all of the uncertainty of this moment in time,” she wrote.
Hyman ‘had a heart of gold’
Hyman, an associate at Rudin Management, was remembered for her talent as a student athlete, devotion to family, and compassion for others.
She grew up in Manhattan and attended the Riverdale Country School in the Bronx, where she won The Founders Award, presented to a “young woman who best demonstrated outstanding ability, leadership, and sportsmanship and the qualities of hard work, excellent attitude and responsibility to her teammates and school.” Milton Sipp, head of the middle school, remembered Hyman as having a “heart of gold.”
Hyman went on to study hotel and restaurant administration at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2020. Her first job out of college was at the real estate investment firm Sagehall in New York City, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had been with Rudin Management, the firm that owns the Park Avenue office building where the shooting occurred, for just nine months when she was killed.
The service in Hyman’s memory at Central was filled to capacity with friends and family, with a second room set up for overflow viewing. Former classmates of Hyman from Riverdale sang “Shalom Rav,” a song that a friend recalled the two had sung together at her bat mitzvah.
Rabbi Maurice Salth of Central spoke about how, as a young child, Hyman tended to her mom when she was struggling with an illness, and had deep loyalty to friends and family. The compassion extended to “causes she thought deserved support,” like after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Salth said.
“Afterwards, time and time again, she reminded people of the facts, and the tragedy of this horrific day,” Salth said. “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 is accepting donations in Hyman’s memory to Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency service, and Friends of the IDF, a nonprofit that supports soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces.
JTA contributed to this report.
