SORROW AND TENSION
Many question timing of visit as victims are laid to rest
Overwhelming sorrow and an uneasy political controversy enveloped Pittsburgh on Tuesday as residents buried their dead and President Donald Trump visited the city mourning over Saturday’s massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue. Demonstrators cried “Leave Pittsburgh, leave Pennsylvania” close to where the president and first lady Melania Trump placed white roses and stones from the White House on a memorial to the victims.
PITTSBURGH – Overwhelming sorrow and an uneasy political controversy enveloped the city Tuesday as residents buried their dead and President Donald Trump was greeted by hundreds of protesters near the site of Saturday’s massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
Demonstrators cried “Leave Pittsburgh, leave Pennsylvania” and hoisted signs that read “Words Matter” close to where the president and first lady Melania Trump placed white roses and stones from the White House on a memorial to the victims. The president would later visit victims at a hospital.
The visit by the president came on a sunny autumn day in this rugged western Pennsylvania city struggling to come to grips with an attack by a gunman who shouted anti-Semitic epithets. Brothers Cecil and David Rosen-
thal and acclaimed physician Jerry Rabinowitz were among the first of 11 elderly Jewish worshippers to be buried.
Trump critics have blamed his sometimes-rancorous rhetoric targeting migrants, political foes and the media for sharply dividing the nation and prompting people adrift on society’s fringes to believe violence is a justifiable recourse.
In the upscale Squirrel Hill neighborhood where Saturday’s carnage unfolded, Zoe Feinstein, 28, stopped by Pamela’s Diner before attending Rabinowitz’s funeral.
Feinstein said she was not happy Trump was coming.
“It’s incredibly disrespectful,” she said through tears. She said the synagogue attack was “the direct result of the hate he has incited.”
Mo Coleman, 86, wasn’t as vocal in his dislike of Trump’s plans to visit.
“He is a president,” said Coleman, director emeritus of the Institute of Politics of the University of Pittsburgh. “He has a right to be here. His timing is just bad.”
Mayor Bill Peduto, a Democrat, had suggested that Trump consider the families of the victims and wait at least until the funerals were concluded before making the trip.
None of the top four congressional leaders traveled with the president and first lady to Pittsburgh, despite invitations from the White House. The state’s U.S. senators, Pat Toomey and Bob Casey, also didn’t meet with the president. Neither did Peduto nor county Executive Rich Fitzgerald.
A phalanx of local liberal Jewish leaders had signed a letter urging Trump not to come “until you fully denounce white nationalism.”
Trump offered to visit with the family of Daniel Stein, 71, whose funeral also was Tuesday. Stein’s nephew, Stephen Halle, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the family declined.
Even Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who said Trump was welcome to visit, said he expected to be busy with the families of the victims and had no plans to meet with the president.
Tuesday afternoon, the Jewish activist group If Not Now Pittsburgh hosted the first of two rallies in Squirrel Hill, an event next to the Jewish Community Center. Many vocally opposed Trump’s visit.
Organizer Diana Clarke began the rally by not only describing Saturday’s attack but also the shooting death of two African Americans by a white gunman at a Kroger supermarket in Kentucky.