Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Natan Sharansky, speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America said that national Jewish values help realize universal ones.

“This choice between freedom and identity is a false one. The Iron Curtain was brought down and hundreds of millions found their freedom only because we found the source of strength in our pride and in our identity. We succeeded in building the democratic State of Israel and bringing the ideas of human rights and equality to the darkest places populated by tyrants and dictators only because we were empowered by thousands of years of dreams and prayers of ‘Next year in Jerusalem’."