Ceremony honors Pittsburgh synagogue shooting victims five years later
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A service of remembrance marked five years since the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.
Schenley Park was the site of Friday's commemoration ceremony. For the first time in five years, survivors and family members of those killed came together with the trial behind them.
As the community trickled into the park. it looked like a sea of hugs and smiles.
"This commemoration is going to be a special one," said Diane Rosenthal, sister of David and Cecil Rosenthal. "We could close the chapter, breathe a little bit and we've gotten to know the families, we've gotten to know the ones we've lost."
The Rosenthal sisters, Diane and Michele, wore t-shirts in honor of their brothers, two of the 11 killed that day. They're "loving like the boys" and seeing prosecutors for the first time since a jury returned a guilty verdict and sentenced the gunman to death.
"The empathy that they've shown to all of us meant so much," Michele Rosenthal said. "But I would say with the families during those three months, even though it's been five years, we grew even closer."
Congregation leaders lifted everyone up in prayer, the survivors read a group poem and students played violins.
"Instruments played by prisoners in concentration camps, captains in ghettos," said Sandy Rosen of Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh.
Those young musicians from Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestras and Mt. Lebanon High represented the future, carrying the memory of the 11 forward.
"Hopefully they'll be less divided, more loving, more kind to one another and help us get onto a better path," Rosen said.