Israel President Reuven Rivlin Meets Black Community in New York
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin began his first visit to the United States as president with a speech to leaders of the African-American community.
Speaking at the Christian Cultural Center in New York, Rivlin compared the establishment of Israel to the civil rights movement, and recalled the friendship of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He said the proximity of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day last week and International Holocaust Remembrance Day this week is “no coincidence.”
“I also have a dream, that we will once more hear God knocking on the door,” said Rivlin. “I dream, and believe, that Jerusalem, which is a microcosm of the whole world, will serve as an example of coexistence between different religions and communities. Jews and Arabs are not doomed to live together, we are destined to live together.”
Rivlin also met with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on the trip. He will not be meeting with President Obama, citing conflicting schedules.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO