“We have to rise above it,” he said. “We have to go on.”
Dominick Candelore, the co-owner of a Coldstone Creamery ice cream shop at the corner of Murray and Forbes Avenues, the heart of Squirrel Hill, disagreed with some Jewish leaders who opposed a presidential visit. “To me, I welcome him, I welcome him with open arms,” he said. “I don’t have to agree with all his views, but it’s a stand-up thing for him to do.”
Among those who came to pay their respects for the Rosenthal brothers were about 100 members of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, including the owner, the head coach, many players and the team’s general manager, said the Steelers spokesman, Burt Lauten.
Another sister of the Rosenthal brothers, Michelle Rosenthal, used to work for the Steelers as the manager of community relations, and was well liked among the members of the team.
Relatives talked about how David and Cecil were often referred to simply as “the boys.” There was David, 54, the younger brother, the stickler for cleanliness, who carried a police scanner wherever he went and was the right hand of his mother. And Cecil, 59, the socialite and inveterate gossip, the one who knew everyone, the informal mayor of Squirrel Hill, the mirror image of his father.
David and Cecil would meet everyone coming through the doors at Tree of Life, arriving earlier than everyone else and handing out prayer books as people walked in.
“The definition of beautiful souls,” Rabbi Myers said, and in the rare allusion to the horror that led to their deaths, added, “not an ounce of hate in them, something we’re terribly missing in society today.”
The service ended and the mourners prepared to proceed to the cemetery. But other events were not far from people’s minds.
