President Rivlin with Arthur Stark (left) and Malcolm Hoenlein
President Rivlin with Arthur Stark (left) and Malcolm HoenleinAvi Hayun

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin welcomed participants in the 45th annual Presidents Leadership Mission to Israel, now taking place in Jerusalem.

Rivlin said he felt like he had come to “a reunion with family”. He emphasized that Jewish unity was paramount and called for Israel-Diaspora dialog starting on the premise that “we are one”. He added that the US was Israel’s closest ally and that the two countries “must work together to fight anti-Semitism” as well as Iran. In addition, he said, “there can be no Jewish state without being a democracy.”

The President was presented with a Jerusalem-themed pen made by the City of David containing a chip with the text of the entire Tanach, or Bible. “When you meet a foreign leader who questions Israel’s right to the land,” Hoenlein told him, “just show them this pen, which has embedded in it the historic claim and contemporary right of the Jewish People, the Jewish State, in their land.”