Friends, family, and both former political allies and rivals paid respects to longtime Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman at his funeral on Friday, held at Congregation Agudath Sholom, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Stamford, Conn.

Mourners included Connecticut’s current Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, and former senator Chris Dodd, as well as former Vice President Al Gore, who tapped Lieberman as his running mate in 2000. That made Lieberman the first Jewish-American on a major party’s presidential ticket.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, who defeated Lieberman in a bitter 2006 Democratic Senate primary before losing to him in the general election, joked about how the two met.

“Friendship with Joe Lieberman started in different ways. Mine started on sort of an inauspicious note,” he said.

Despite their differences over the Iraq war, Lamont had grown to have an enormous respect for Lieberman’s integrity and faith, he said.

“I last got to see the senator at the Alfalfa Club,” Lamont said of the Capitol Hill social club. “He said, ‘I think, governor, there’s one war we could agree on. Let’s work together in making sure America stands up and helps the Ukrainian freedom fighters.’ And I said, senator, ‘Let’s do that together. Let’s get together.’”

Lieberman died on Wednesday at the age of 82 from complications due to a fall.

During the funeral, friends and family touted his decades of political accomplishments in the Senate, working to improve civil rights, national security and the environment—all while maintaining his faith as one of the most prominent, observant Jews in American public life.

All of the speakers at the funeral said Lieberman had a rare devotion to faith, family and public service, as well as a decency that he extended to those he knew best and those he barely knew.

“He was a giant to me growing up and entering Connecticut politics,” Murphy said. “He came to campaign for me when I was a longshot candidate for the state legislature at age 25 because he believed in mentoring young people who had a kind of vision for the world like he did.”

Image - Reuters