Prime Minister Netanyahu נתניהו
Prime Minister Netanyahu נתניהוFlash90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu congratulated Ruth Cohen on winning the Worldwide Bible Contest for Youth Wednesday.

"Congratulations to the winner of the Bible Contest, Ruth Cohen. [The last female] World Bible Quiz winner was Or Ashuel in 2010, with my son Avner placing second. Congratulations to Ruth who continues the tradition," Netanyahu said.

In his speech during the quiz, the Prime Minister said, "The book of books is the source of the eternal values ​​that sustain us as a people. Love of our fellow man, love of the land, ingathering of the exiles, heroism, justice, morality. But this year we also derive insights from it to deal with the plague. Our ancestors fought various epidemics."

"This past Shabbat, in the 'Tazria-Metzorah' Torah portions, we read about leprosy, and there were other diseases of various kinds, and here we read in the Torah about the isolation and the identification of the disease and everything else. Sometimes the number of victims in the plague was enormous. During King David's time there were 70,000 dead. All the tribes of Israel stood together with a mutual fate. He connected the people to its identity, faith, essence. And, along with the hardship and the grief, the plague also made us stronger. National resilience was put to the test and the nation survived with the help of G-d. We too during the coronavirus will draw strength from it. Even in the current epidemic - Israel's eternity will not lie. Let us overcome the plague with G-d's help, as the prophet Jeremiah says: 'Behold, I will bring it healing and cure.' This is how generations of pioneers built the land fighting fever, malaria, swamps and enemies,” the prime minister added.

"My beloved father-in-law, Shmuel Ben-Artzi, of blessed memory, was both a pioneer and an underground member. He came to Israel out of love for the homeland, but above all, the love of the Bible burned in him. He was a Bible scholar, teaching Bible in a Bible group that lasted for decades, the oldest in the State of Israel. He was a great educator, he was a writer, he was a poet. His love for the Bible was also passed on to his children, who were also students of the Bible, and also to his grandson Avner, who a decade ago was Israel's first place male winner and came in second in the World Bible Quiz.

"It's not a coincidence, it's something that our family expresses every Saturday when I read the week's portion with Avner, from whom I generally learn something new. There's nothing that elevates the soul more. I know it's the cornerstone, the foundation stone, of our existence as a people and what guarantees our existence for generations to come," the prime minister concluded.