Donald Trump on Tuesday 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 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.
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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 neighborhood.
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."
"It was tragic, it was sad -- it was a beautiful tribute to two wonderful, loving, innocent men," said Paul Taylor, a Catholic priest who attended the service, which he said was "standing room only."
Another mourner, a retired teacher who only gave her first name Nancy, said: "I was finally able to cry."
"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."
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