Trump honors dead as funerals begin
His visit draws protesters; four victims laid to rest
PITTSBURGH — President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrived in Pittsburgh on Tuesday afternoon, visiting the grief-stricken city not long after the first funerals began for the 11 victims of the mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue.
The president landed amid accusations that he and his administration continue to fuel the anti-Semitism that inspired Saturday’s massacre and pleas from local leaders to stay away as they declared he was unwelcome.
Earlier in the day, thousands of mourners jammed a synagogue, a Jewish community center and a third, undisclosed site for funerals for Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein and Cecil and David Rosenthal, the first in a weeklong series of services for victims.
With Tree of Life still cordoned off as a crime scene, more than 1,000 people poured into Rodef Shalom, one of the city’s oldest and largest synagogues, to mourn the Rosenthal brothers, ages 59 and 54.
The two intellectually disabled men were “beautiful souls” who had “not an ounce of hate in them — something we’re terribly missing today,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, a survivor of the massacre, said.
Rabinowitz’s funeral was held at the Jewish Community Center in the city’s Squirrel Hill section, the historic Jewish neighborhood where the rampage took place. Two police vehicles were posted at a side door and two at the main President Trump, with first lady Melania Trump and Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, places a stone at a memorial for those killed. entrance.
The 66-year-old Rabinowitz was a go-to doctor for HIV patients in the epidemic’s early and desperate days, a physician who always hugged his patients as they left his office.
A private funeral was also held for Stein, the 71-yearold men’s club president at Tree of Life.
Congressional leaders from both parties — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., — all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit, according to officials familiar with matter. (McConnell’s office said the Kentucky senator “has events in the state and was unable to attend.”)
So have relatives of at least one of the victims.
Trump offered to visit with Stein’s family, but his nephew, Stephen Halle, said they declined in part because of the comments Trump made in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, when he suggested the synagogue should have had an armed guard.
“Everybody feels that they were inappropriate,” Halle said Tuesday. “He was blaming the community.”
The city’s Democratic mayor, Bill Peduto, had asked the White House to consider “the will of the families” before visiting — as well as the resources of a city straining under the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
After Trump confirmed his visit anyway, the mayor’s office said Peduto would not appear with the president. Neither would Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf or Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, who lives near the synagogue, his office said.
Myers, the rabbi at Tree of Life who called out “hate” in U.S. political speech after the shooting welcomed the president.
On their arrival in Pittsburgh, the Trumps entered the vestibule of the synagogue, where they lit candles for each victim before stepping outside. Shouts of “Words matter!” and “Trump, go home!” could be heard from demonstrators gathered not far from where a gunman had opened fire Saturday.
Accompanied by the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, both of whom are Jewish and serve as top White House aides, the Trumps placed their remembrances — one stone and one white rosebud for each victim — outside the Tree of Life synagogue.
Near the synagogue, flowers, candles and chalk drawings filled the corner, including a small rock painted with t he number “6,000,011,” adding the victims this week to the estimated number of Jews killed in the Holocaust.
The Trumps later spent more than an hour at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, where some of the victims are recovering.
About an hour before Trump arrived in the area, more than 100 people had jammed onto a street corner in Squirrel Hill, the predominantly Jewish neighborhood where the synagogue is located and many victims lived. The number swelled as Trump’s visit neared, with some marching through the neighborhood streets and declaring themselves angry that he would come to their community.
“He’s done nothing but stoke the type of fear and hatred that led to this,” said Ben Case, 34. “And he’s coming here for a photo op and to check it off his list. But we know he’s not part of the solution.”
But Shayna Marcus, a nurse who rushed to the synagogue on Saturday to help with the wounded, said she felt that the president was taking an unfair portion of the blame.
“I don’t think focusing on Trump is the answer — or on politics,” said Marcus.
Trump’s supporters paint him as a friend to Jews, pointing out his Jewish daughter and son-in-law as well as his support for the Israeli government and his condemnations of “evil” anti-Semitism after the attack.