Ladies
and gentlemen, thank you all for coming out here. This is truly a historic day.
I don’t think you’ve ever seen the president of Israel visit the beautiful
borough of The Bronx. And Mr. President, I felt so much joy and so much pride.
What
you see here today, and I know this has been a huge undertaking, let me first
begin by thanking the Secret Service of the United States as well as the
security forces of Israel, the NYPD, and all of the different agencies that are
here with us today.
What
you see here, Mr. President, is an amazing group of folks, not just in The
Bronx but throughout the city of New York. What you should understand that what
we are trying to do and what we did last week – and I’ll speak about that in a
few moments – is that what are trying to strengthen the relationship of The
Bronx, the relationship with the Latino community with that of the leadership
and the people of Israel.
Mr.
President, here in this audience we have members of the legislature, which you
met, from state senators to council members. We have men and women of the
clergy, many of them evangelical. And I have to say, and I’ve said this to the
president when he received us and the delegation I was with, that the Latino
evangelical community is a staunch supporter of Israel and the state of Israel.
The
support is not a political support but very much a spiritual support for the
state of Israel and the people of Israel. We also have men and women of
business here, and educators. We have folks from the universities, we also have
many people from the cultural institutions including the one which we are in
today. I know that Holly Block is here, who is the director at the Bronx Museum
of Art. Thank you Holly for having us here.
So
ladies and gentlemen, damas y caballeros, last week I was in Israel and I want
to thank my good friend Michael Miller at (the Jewish Community Relations
Council of New York) and Bob Kaplan as well.
We
visited Israel with a wonderful delegation of Latino leaders, a cross-section
of the Latino leadership, many of who are here today.
This
group of individuals were able to go into Israel and experience so many
different things. The first day that we were there we went to the Golan
Heights. The Golan Heights is so strategically important for the safety of
Israel. In fact, we also saw the day before that importance because there was a
certain threat coming from Syria.
The
following day we were in Tel Aviv. In Tel Aviv, the day that we left Tel Aviv
we saw an attack on the people of Israel in a public bus. We understand and we
pray and we support Israel and the safety of Israel. We pray for peace there in
Israel.
But
we were also able to experience, through this trip, the everyday life. We quite
often see the media, and the media wants to concentrate, rightfully so, on the
conflict. But we saw average residents of Israel. We were able to visit a
telecommunications company and see how they are not only with technology but
also providing jobs and employment opportunities, especially for the women of
Israel, how they are dealing with workforce diversity.
We
saw educational institutions, a high school in Sderot. We visited a primary
school in Jerusalem. The name of that primary school is the Guatemala Primary
School. When I asked why it is named after Guatemala, they said “we have many
schools named after all of the Latin countries that supported at the UN with
their vote for the creation of the state of Israel.”
We
saw and visited a non-for-profit that deals with immigration in Israel. In
other words, on a daily basis, what is happening in Israel is the same things
that are happening here in The Bronx. What Latinos need to understand is that
we have this strong connection with the people of Israel, with the Jewish
community. In fact in Latin America, when we visited the foreign ministry, we
saw and we heard how in Latin America thousands and thousands of Latinos are
practicing Judaism.
Here
in The Bronx, where we stand today, this used to be a synagogue. When I used to
be an assembly member, the office where my assembly office was at, that used be
a synagogue. When State Senator Diaz first became a pastor over at Seward
Avenue, the church that he pastored was a synagogue. There’s a strong
connection, one that, next to my good friend Ido Aharoni, the ambassador –
let’s give him a round of applause – between Ido and Michael Miller and I and
my good friend the President of Israel, this is a connection, this is a
relationship that we’re forging now for many many many generations to come.
Let
it be known from now on that the Latino community in the city of New York, here
in The Bronx, throughout the United States, in Latin America, we stand with the
State of Israel.
After
all, in 1948, Mr. President, here in The Bronx, there were over 650,000 Jewish residents
of this borough. Even today, we have a robust and vibrant Jewish community.
When you look at the Amalgamated apartment houses, which were built in 1926 by
the Amalgamated Workers Union, this was done mostly for Jewish members so that
they could find adequate homes and adequate housing.
A
lot of folks don’t understand the connection and so today, to have your
presence here Mr. President, today to have the presence of the Latino community
and the Jewish community I think shows and sends a loud signal that we are
exactly where need to be as we move forward. It means the world to us. The
Bronx has come back a long way from two to three decades ago. Our employment is
up, our crime is down, housing is heading in the right direction and what we
want to do is share that with Israel. We want is for Israel to share with us
some of the successes you have had in those areas as well.
I’ll
leave you with this: its starts or it continues with future generations. What
we want to do, one of the things we want to do to make sure that we continue to
have this conversation is, we’re putting together a school here in The Bronx,
with our students, and what we are going to have is – and we are all old now
but when we were younger we used to have something called pen pals. Do you
remember being in pen pals program, we used to write letters to somebody else
from another state of another country? So with the students of the Guatemala
Primary School, we’re going to have, via computer – not necessarily letters –
this pen pal, sharing program.
I
think it will go a long way in introducing our youth, here in The Bronx, with
the youth in Israel so that as they get older, as they become the leaders of
tomorrow, that relationship, that friendship, that bond will last for many many
many generations to come.
President
Rivlin, thank you for being with us today.