US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman spoke this morning in Hebrew to participants at the business conference of the haredi newspaper “Hamodia.”
At the start of the speech, Friedman noted, “This is my first speech in Hebrew, so please have patience,” and immediately went on to detail the embassy’s activity for aiding the haredi sector.
“The President, as a businessman, supports every effort to advance business in the [haredi] community,” Friedman said. “The embassy has a very long relationship with the haredi community and highly respects it.”
He said that “The embassy is helping haredi families integrate into the workforce. In the field of English, we are cooperating with a college to teach the language.”
Friedman noted later that “In the near future, the embassy will begin two projects which help haredi women. The first project will help women integrate into the workforce and the second will help businesses managed by women.”
“The bottom line is that the embassy and I will form partnerships with the haredi community, because if the haredi community is strong, the nation of Israel is strong. What I see here is a lot of desire to create a lot of ‘flour’ (in reference to the mishnaic dictum that ‘if there is no flour, there is no Torah,’ ed.) and also to strengthen the community. I support this, President Trump supports this, and the American people supports this.”