Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu (Otzma Yehudit) and Development of the Negev and Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf (Otzma Yehudit) visited the US over the weekend.
On Sunday, Eliyahu met with senior rabbis at Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn and visited the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in Queens.
On Monday, Eliyahu said he had “just finished a meeting with education leaders in the liberal religious community in the US... We brought your voice. We explained the logic behind the change,” he wrote on Facebook, referring to the judicial reforms.
“We didn’t ask for consent,” he added. “We sought dialogue, and I know they understand our positions better now. There is no substitute for an open dialogue.”
On Sunday, Eliyahu wrote on Twitter: “I have now finished a prayer service at the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave in New York, and the truth is that there is nothing more appropriate than opening the ‘Jewish Diaspora Week’ here at the Rebbe’s grave.”
אני יוצא כעת מתפילה באוהל הרבי מליובאוויטש שבני יורק, והאמת שאין יותר מתאים מלפתוח את "שבוע חיזוק הקשר עם התפוצות" כאן אצל הרבי, מי שאורו הגדול זורח בכל מקום בתפוצות בחסות מפעל השלוחים האדיר שהקים. pic.twitter.com/VLAymbmvt8
— עמיחי אליהו (@Eliyahu_a) March 20, 2023
Eliyahu is the son of Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a senior religious-Zionist rabbi. His grandfather was Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, the late Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel.
Some Jewish organizations said they would not meet with representatives from the right-wing Otzma Yehudit Party.