Hotovely (R) and Georgian Prime Minister
Hotovely (R) and Georgian Prime MinisterAvi Chayon/Foreign Ministry

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely hosted senior members of the Georgian community in Israel today (Tuesday) at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, at a special event honoring the community with the guests of honor, Georgian Prime Minister Georgi Quirikashvili and the Georgian Foreign Minister.

Deputy Minister Hotovely, a proud representative of the Georgian community, presented a unique gift to Georgian Prime Minister Georgi Quirikashvili: A copy of the 18 families' original letter from Georgia, written in 1969 to the UN ambassador and the Human Rights Council, asking the United Nations to demand that the Soviet Union open the gates to let them immigrate to Eretz Yisrael.The letter was originally written in Russian.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hotovely said, "We have true friendship, not only diplomatically, but personal friendship on the personal level, and no less than a hundred thousand tourists from Israel visited Georgia last year, Israelis like the Georgian people and love to visit Georgia.

"The Georgian Prime Minister invited the Israeli Prime Minister to visit Georgia together with a delegation of Israeli companies engaged in agriculture and cyber, and I hope that next year, the government can organize such an effective economic mission."

At the close of the event, Hotovely presented the Prime Minister a document on the legality of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria and said: "Our settlement in the places of our forefathers is legal" and gave him a gift marking the jubilee year of the liberation of Jerusalem with the message "Jerusalem of peace."