Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 30 Oct 2018
US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has visited the Pittsburgh synagogue where 11 people were gunned down at the weekend in an anti-Semitic attack, as more than 1,000 protesters gathered nearby to make it clear the US president was unwelcome.
Carrying signs that read “President Hate, Leave Our State!” and “Trump, Renounce White Nationalism Now,” the protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue where the carnage unfolded on Saturday.
Trump – accompanied by his wife Melania, as well as his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who are Jewish – was to light a candle for each of the 11 victims, killed during Shabbat services.
The controversial visit came after mourners crowded into nearby synagogues and joined street processions at the first funerals for some of the victims of the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in modern US history.
The service for brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, both in their 50s, was the first in honour of those killed in what was an apparent hate crime.
Services for 66-year-old doctor Jerry Rabinowitz and 71-year-old Daniel Stein followed in Pittsburgh, where scores of residents protested Trump’s visit.
The president’s trip to Pennsylvania came amid a mounting row over whether his fierce rhetoric at campaign rallies and on Twitter has helped stoke extremism ahead of next week’s midterm elections.
“It’s just enraging that this type of hate crime could occur here and that the leadership of our country does not denounce anti-Semitism and does not denounce white nationalism and does not denounce neo-Nazism. And that is the problem,” mourner Joanna Izenson told AFP.
Suspect Robert Bowers is facing more than two dozen charges related to the bloodshed at the Tree of Life, which is located in the city’s traditionally Jewish Squirrel Hill neighbourhood.
The 46-six-year-old reportedly told police after his capture, “I just want to kill Jews,” having claimed on social media that Jews were helping transport caravans of refugees from Central America into the United States, calling the migrants “invaders”.
The caravans are a favourite target of the president, and he has called a group of several thousand impoverished mainly Honduran migrants currently attempting to walk north to the United States “an invasion”.
‘Beautiful tribute’
Friends and strangers alike packed the Rodef Shalom temple, a 25-minute walk from the Tree of Life, for the Rosenthals’ funeral, which took place under tight security.
After the service, mourners spilled out onto the street, some of them sobbing and clasping each other.
The brothers’ caskets were placed in two hearses and driven away, with a sheriff’s car leading the procession.
Later in the day, dozens of mourners walked behind the hearse carrying the remains of Rabinowitz in Squirrel Hill, according to footage posted on social media.
Meanwhile, protesters gathered near the Tree of Life synagogue to vent their anger.
“Saturday’s violence was a direct culmination of your influence,” said one organiser, reading from an open letter sent to Trump.
President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully renounce white nationalism.
Jeffrey Myers, a rabbi who was present when the attack started, told CNN, said: “The president of the United States is always welcome”.
But protesters disagreed.
“I think it’s more divisive than uniting,” 57-year-old librarian Nonie Heystek said of Trump’s visit.
‘Christian rabbi’
The Pittsburgh shooting spree came in the same week that authorities arrested an ardent Trump supporter from Florida on suspicion of mailing more than a dozen homemade bombs to opponents and critics of the president.
The incidents have led to accusations that Trump has fanned violence through almost daily tweets and speeches lambasting illegal immigrants, political opponents and journalists in divisive language.
Trump has struck back in typically robust fashion, arguing that critical journalists were, in fact, the ones feeding extremism across the country.
“There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news,” Trump tweeted.
Trump’s Pittsburgh visit is not the only element of the administration’s response to the massacre that has been a source of controversy.
On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence attended a campaign rally in Michigan at which a so-called “Christian rabbi” was invited to speak on behalf of the area’s Jewish community.
Instead of opening with prayers for the 11 victims of the Tree of Life shooting, Loren Jacobs praised Jesus Christ and then offered prayers for four Republican candidates.
Jacobs later offered words for the dead in the form of a prayer to Jesus Christ, without naming any of them.
Jews expressed outrage over social media, describing Jacobs’ appearance as an “insulting political stunt” and blasting Pence as a “Christian supremacist.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
According to newspaper articles, as from the 29th of October there have been 297 “mass shootings” in the United states this year – the FBI classify mass shootings as there being more than 3 victims involved, this is day 302 of the year, so almost 1 mass shooting per day.
It it were anywhere else, the US travel advisory would be telling citizens not to travel there.
@PaulineSmith: and yet Trump loves Jewish people and is Israel’s biggest supporter as evidenced by moving the embassy, stop talking complete bull, get a new agenda, this one has run its course
@Pixie McMullen: not to mention the fact that Trump’s son-in-law Jared is Jewish as is his daughter Ivanka who converted in 2009.
@neilo: maybe, maybe not. But without that agenda there wud be little to no jews in Israel as they wud be slaughtered. Jews have a target on their backs, e.g. most Jewish schools in France have armed security as threats have become so strong
@PaulineSmith: come back and defend your statement Pauline.
@Pixie McMullen: Trump is pretending to support Jewish people on the one hand, whilst he is spouting disgraceful anti-Jewish hate at the same time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o6-bi3jlxk
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/04/donald-trump-antisemitic-hillary-clinton-tweet
On Monday, the chief executive the Anti-Defamation League condemned Trump’s tweet as further evidence of extremist sympathies within the Trump campaign.
“We’ve been troubled by the tone of this campaign for the past six months,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, national director and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, also speaking to CNN.
“The first time something like this happens, like the quote from [in fact attributed to] Mussolini, it’s called a mistake. The second time it happens, like you re-tweet from a white supremacist Twitter account, that’s sloppy. But we’re now at the sixth or seventh time the Trump campaign has invoked bigotry or racism. It’s a pattern that’s perplexing, troubling and wrong.”
My thoughts are with the familys of the victims..reading that article was hard .im so glad i live in Ireland . Must be one of the safest countrys to live in at the moment..
@PaulineSmith: Yeah the one in five people who voted for Peter Casey were all racist. Cool story Pauline.
@Mari: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6331451/Lawyers-Kansas-bomb-plot-man-say-influenced-Trumps-rhetoric.html See what the IMF does first?
Pretty pathetic that The Journal deleted my comments calling out the extremist new wave of anti-Semitism coming from the Alt-Right in the U.S. and at home here in Ireland. This article literally supports what I wrote, so maybe it should be removed from your site in order to apply the same standards.
@PaulineSmith: you can’t see your own hatred, but others can. You have no arguments for all your howling.
@Andy Cahalan: I can 100% see my hatred for anti-Semitism and fascism.
@PaulineSmith: You add nothing of value to any of these conversation except for throwing out insults and conspiracy theories. Last week you said the Proud Boys we’re responsible for sending the bombs to Democratic leaders. In your mind Trump is the route cause of all the evils in the world therefore you will never have a balance view on anything.
What a world we live in! And they keep making guns!!
If only the Priest was packing would this not happen. While blood is boiling Trump then comes out and calls for the death penalty to be reinstated. Wouldn’t trust him with the big red button. It’s one extreme country.
Rent a mob turns out to protest Trump. That would be a better headline.
@Martin: Could you please leave your QAnon hate speech at the door, especially after the most recent latest white supremacist terror attack
“Several thousand protesters, an ethnically mixed crowd of all ages including members of Pittsburgh’s tight-knit Jewish community, held an anti-Trump rally about a block away from the synagogue just as his visit began, singing Old Testament psalms and carrying signs with slogans such as “We build bridges not walls.”
Many of their signs carried slogans and imagery invoking one of Squirrel Hill’s most famous residents, the late Fred Rogers, whose long-running children’s television show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” featured lessons on friendship and kindness. Their march started on the street where he grew up and ended at the church where he belonged. ”
Der fuhrer makes a visit to see first hand the results of his handywork. His liar in chief of leprechauns Conway was spreading her lies as usual.
@SteoG: a German immigrant, finally implementing the correct solution.
@Steven Fitzpatrick: “correct”?
have your say