Last night, the exhibition ‘People, Book, Land: the 3,500 year relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land’, was unveiled at the UN General Assembly lobby.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center and UNESCO exhibit was first shown at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris last June, despite efforts by its Arab delegates to thwart it.
The event was cosponsored by Israel, the United States and Canada. Representatives of the cosponsors delivered brief remarks, including Ambassador Ron Prosor, the United States Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power and Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, Guillermo Rishchynski.
Ambassador Prosor's opening remarks:
I want to thank Rabbi Cooper and the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, as well as, Professor Robert Wistrich for curating this exhibit.
And a special thanks to Secretary Goucha [Goo-sha]
from UNESCO and our friends and colleagues at the American and Canadian
Missions - Ambassador Power and Ambassador Rishchynski - for
cohosting tonight’s event.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for joining us this evening as we explore 3,500 years of
Jewish history – that’s just a little longer than it took to get this exhibit
to open at the United Nations.
You know, the Jewish people have a long history when it comes to
public speaking. We trace our tradition back to Moses, who three thousand years
ago came down from Mount Sinai and delivered the world’s first presentation
from a handheld tablet.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Next month, Israel will celebrate its 67th Independence
Day commemorating the Jewish people’s return to the land of Israel after
thousands of years in exile. In the land
of Israel, every hill and valley and stream is steeped in history.
When my children were younger, my wife and I would plan family
trips to explore our country and our history. I explained how for thousands of years,
our ancestors walked the same streets that they are walking and spoke the same
language that they speak.
We explored Jerusalem, where our forefathers - Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob – travelled the city’s rolling hills.
Where King David laid the cornerstone for his palace over 3,000 years
ago. And where King Solomon constructed
the First Temple.
Together we visited the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron
where our forefathers and foremothers are buried. And we visited Tiberius, where Jewish
scholars wrote the Talmud, our Jewish law books over 2,500 years ago.
For thousands of years, the Jewish people maintained a constant
presence in the land of Israel – watching empires rise and fall and conquerors
come and go - until 1948 when the modern State of Israel was reborn.
Since then, we have taken a desolate land and made it flourish; we
took a language on the verge of extinction and brought it back to life; and, we
took an ancient people and gave them refuge from the persecutions that plagued
them across the centuries and across the globe.
President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “The more
you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future.”
The
exhibit before you brings Jewish history to life. Together let us explore the
past and equip ourselves with the knowledge we need to build a more peaceful
future.