Politics

Tree of Life synagogue director disputes Biden claim he visited after massacre

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President Biden on Thursday told Jewish leaders that he spent time at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh after the October 2018 mass murder of 11 people there — but the synagogue told The Post he never visited.

“I remember spending time at the, you know, going to the, you know, the Tree of Life synagogue, speaking with them,” Biden said in a 16-minute virtual address ahead of the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. However, Barb Feige, executive director of the Tree of Life, said that Biden did not visit the synagogue in the nearly three years since the anti-Semitic attack.

In a phone interview, Feige, executive director since July 2019, said firmly that “no” Biden didn’t visit, even before taking office when he had a lower public profile as a former vice president and then-Democratic presidential candidate.

Then-President Donald Trump visited the Tree of Life three days after the worst anti-Jewish hate crime in US history. Trump was joined by prominent Jewish members of his administration, including his daughter Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

Biden last year issued a statement on the second anniversary of the attack, saying, “When anti-Semitism is allowed to fester, it shreds the fabric of our communities and erodes our soul” [FOX].

MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE
PHOTO CREDITS: TIME

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