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Biden: “I remember spending time at the — you know, going to the — you know, the Tree of Life Synagogue, speaking with the — just — it just is amazing these things are happening — happening in America. And I guess the point I want to make is that it just shows that if we walk away from ‘never again,’ it’s going to happen again. It can’t happen again.”
Except that according to Barb Feige, executive director of the Tree of Life, it didn’t ever happen – the Biden visit to the synagogue, that is. Feige told the NY Post shortly after Biden’s speech () that Biden didn’t visit her synagogue, not right after the massacre of October 27, 2018, when a shooter killed eleven people and wounded six, and not any other time, including his presidential campaign.
The Republican Jewish Coalition suggested Biden “flat out lied about visiting” the Tree of Life synagogue, and scored on the rebound, stating, “The ultimate irony: the person who actually did visit in 2018 with members of the Jewish community? His predecessor.”
President Donald Trump did visit the Tree of Life synagogue, three days after the attack, accompanied by the Jewish members of his administration, including his daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was on hand as well. They met with Tree of Life spiritual leader Jeffrey Myers and Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer. Trump lit candles for the victims, then visited the wounded at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital.
At the time, Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto said Trump should not have come, since the wounds in the community were still raw. Of course, the mayor said nothing about Joe Biden’s visit, probably because it never happened.
