New York – The White House held its annual High Holy Days call with prominent rabbinical associations just hours after President Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke their weeks-long standoff without direct communication.
The High Holy Days call was initially slated to be before Rosh Hashanah on October 1, though it was rescheduled after Iran launched its massive missile attack against Israel, which the US played a major role in defending.
“I apologize for having to reschedule it,” President Biden said on the call. “In my direction last week, the United States military took unprecedented action again to actively assist the successful defense of Israel.”
Biden said it has been an honor to do the High Holy Day calls the past three years, and he knows this year the call is very different as it’s a difficult time for the Jewish community and Jews around the world.
“In the midst of the High Holy Days, two days ago we commemorated the first anniversary of October 7, the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Biden said. “And a year later, the trauma and the loss from that day and its aftermath are still raw. It’s hard to memorialize and mourn the tragedy that’s still ongoing.”
Biden said he spoke to Netanyahu for an hour on Wednesday morning and “offered his condolences on the somber, one-year anniversary.”
Later in the call, White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk said Biden and Netanyahu’s conversation was “obviously very focused” on the attack by Iran and many of the 200 ballistic missiles that the United States shot out of the sky.
“And we will do that again,” McGurk said. “We are committed to the defense of Israel. We’re also committed to holding Iran fully accountable for that attack.”
McGurk fielded a question from Rabbi Zvi Engel, the president of the Rabbinical Council of America and the Rabbi of Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s grandparents in Chicago. Engel asked how the White House can clarify its commitment to Israel as some at home and abroad seek to weaken the United States’ ties to its strongest ally.
McGurk said the massacre of the hostages in the tunnel under Rafah “gut punched all of us” because the United States’ negotiators were in the midst of negotiating overseas through mediators with a list of hostages and a list of prisoners.
Hamas was not fully engaging in that process, he said.
“Yayha Sinwar remains the decision-maker,” McGurk said. “He remains, we believe, alive and in the tunnels underneath Gaza, holding hostages, and likely with hostages in his vicinity.”
Biden said his administration is “doubling down” on its work to release the remaining hostages and will not rest until they’re all home.
He added that just as the world saw last week, the United States “fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and all its proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.”
Biden also said far too many civilians have suffered “far too much” during this year’s conflict and the loss of innocent lives – Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese – is a tragedy.
No place for antisemitism in US, Biden says
Biden then acknowledged the Jewish community’s pain regarding rising antisemitism.
“I see you; I hear you,” he said. “Hopefully, we learned a lesson from our parents’ generation. We have to stand up. We have to call it out. It has to be stopped in America.”
There’s no place anywhere in America – none – for antisemitic hate speech, Biden said.
Biden touted his administration’s National Strategy to Antisemitism and the administration’s financial commitment to physical security for Jewish institutions.
“But I know there’s so much more to do,” he said. “Let me assure you, as your president, that you are not alone. You belong. Always have, always will be, and always must be protected.”
Biden went on to say that Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, is also the happiest day according to some Jewish scholars because it’s a time for forgiveness and for renewal.
He acknowledged that Simchat Torah, a holiday with singing and dancing, falls in two weeks and will be celebrated with “profound sorrow in your soul, because last year, that holiday was shattered,” he said.
Biden said that in his perspective, Jewish people have embodied this duality of pain and joy for generations.
“It’s your strength. Jewish people have always chosen to find joy, happiness, and life, besides centuries of suffering, persecution, and pain. This is an enduring lesson, the legacy for the Jewish people and for all of America to understand,” Biden said. “Thank you for continuing to find joy in the darkness and shine your light on the nation and on the world.”