Anthony Scaramucci, who served as White House Communications Director for the Trump administration, spoke at a conference hosted by Arutz Sheva and the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce held at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem Monday night.
Scaramucci discussed his own background, and related it to his staunch support for the State of Israel.
"I'm from an immigrant Italian family but the neighborhood that my family settled in, there was a very large Jewish community out there. And I'll just point out to you that you think about your culture, sometimes it's hard to see your culture from the inside, but if you're observing the culture from the outside, I'll tell you, it's an unbelievable culture, it's a beautiful culture that you should be very, very proud of.
"And I tell this story with great sincerity because one of my best friends who I went to high school with, that we went to Tuft's University together, and we were roommates at Harvard Law School, was an American Jewish man, he was a student at that time, his name was Jeff Moslow, and his mom forced us to study before we could eat, before we could play sports, before anything else. I can tell you I grew up in a neighborhood where none of the Italian kids were studying. And without her help, I don't think I ever could have gotten to Tuft's University."
"I stand before you guys full of humility and gratitude, because there are so many heroes in this room, keepers of the Sacred Trust between the L-rd and His Chosen People. To invite me here and welcome me into your country and into your hearts is actually one of the greatest honors of my life."
Scaramucci announced that he would be speaking at the upcoming JBiz Expo, an elite business networking event hosted by the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce (OJC). The Expo is a platform for connecting various businesses, creating potentially vast networking relationships.
After thanking Dr. Joseph Frager, whom he called a "ferocious Zionist superhero", Scaramucci recounted that he'd been to Israel three times.
"The first time I was a 21-year-old and I had my backpack and I had no idea what I was doing, I was at Ein Gedi and I went scuba diving and I was hanging out at the Dead Sea, and taking buses everywhere... I'll just tell you how ignorant I was - we took a cab, I was 21, I had four Americans with me, four of us in the car - we took a cab from Cairo across the Sinai Peninsula to the Rafah Gate. And of course it was a Friday night and the border was closed. So there we were with our backpacks, it was 1985, and the Israeli soldier told us we couldn't stand by the gate waiting for the gate to open so we had to sleep in the desert. So that was my first introduction to Israel.
"I love the country because of what David Ben Gurion said about this country, 'In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.' And just to be here tonight for me is a miracle. Eretz Yisrael has been a miracle its entire history, its mere existence as a country as a sovereign nation has defied the odds. Its survival as a country is a story that no Hollywood screenwriter could ever have sold. It was just too far-fetched that a mere handful of people, less than the number who live in the State of New Jersey, could make a Garden of Eden in one of the most arid climates in the world - that's truly a miracle.
"People came here once for freedom from persecution, where they could practice Judaism and study the Torah, a gift from Hashem Himself, and not be persecuted as a minority.
"But I have to tell you I was at Yad Vashem today, I was incredibly moved by that experience. If you love liberty and you love the sanctity of a human being, you cannot walk through the halls of that museum and not be moved emotionally to tears about what happened and what that atrocity was.
"So I know that this is G-d's land for G-d's Chosen People, I know that the State of Israel will exist today and forever in the future, and it's important for anybody who believes in the concept of liberty and anybody in the West who believes in the individual spirit, to protect the State of Israel. Because we know that with the protection of the Jewish people is literally the wall to protect all other minorities in a civilization. And so for me - I speak as a Goy [non-Jew] in saying this, and I speak as a person that is a Zionist as a result of individual philosophy, and not personal religion. This is something I feel that we have to do for all people of the world, to protect the State of Israel."