President Isaac Herzog was formally sworn in as the 11th president of Israel on Wednesday at the Knesset, replacing Reuven Rivlin.
Herzog was sworn in using the same Bible used to swear in his father, Israel’s sixth president, Chaim Herzog. The Bible belonged to the new president’s grandmother, Sarah, in Glasgow. Her husband, Israel’s future chief rabbi, Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, took it to Europe to rescue Jewish children from orphanages and monasteries after the Holocaust.
Upon accepting the presidency, Herzog pledged to “lower the tone, reduce the flames, and calm things down” in Israel, despite the many divides in the Jewish, democratic state.
“I will set out to complete the task every morning to be the president for all,” Herzog said. “In normal times, this task would almost sound naive. Unfortunately, however, these are not normal times. These are days when statesmanship has been swept away by polarization; days in which the unifying ethos and the shared values are more fragile than ever.”
Herzog noted the two-and-a-half years of stormy election campaigns that followed one another, in what he called an unprecedented political crisis in the State of Israel.
“It has been a crisis which, as the history of modern times teaches us, has managed in the past to destroy nations that were much more ancient and established than the young State of Israel, which is only 73 years old,” he said.
Herzog said he would “embark on a journey between the lines of the rifts and breaks of Israeli society” and “aim to be a unifier amid the differences, the bridge between the tears.”
In his final speech to the Knesset, Rivlin broke out in tears and warned Herzog that nothing in Israel can be taken for granted. Herzog thanked Rivlin for his years of service in his address.
“You knew how to make your love of this country infectious for its sons and daughters,” Herzog told Rivlin. “You represented Israel with great respect in the family of nations, including during the last month of your tenure. You painfully identified the breaking points in Israeli society. You placed a mirror before us, even if its reflection was not always pleasing for all of us.”
Herzog wished the new government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett success.
“There are many complex arguments in Israel that focus on internal elements,” he said. “This is the beauty of Israeli democracy. I am confident that this entire body wants you to succeed. May it be the success of the entire State of Israel.”
But Herzog also made a point of wishing well to the opposition, under Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom he ran unsuccessfully for prime minister.
“There is no democracy without opposition,” Herzog said. “Political realities called me to serve in the position you are now in a number of times. This time, it has fallen on your shoulders. I am confident that you will fulfill your service to the people from the opposition in a statesmanlike, responsible and relevant manner.”
The event was attended by a long list of dignitaries, including Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Rivlin, who spoke before Herzog, congratulated the incoming president.
“Your Excellence the 11th president, my good friend Isaac, I am placing in your safekeeping this dear people,” he said.
RIVLIN ALSO mentioned the importance of the assimilation of Israel into the region, and the need to integrate Arabs into the country’s society.
“We are living in an era of change in the Middle East... where the State of Israel is rooted. We must strengthen this process by deepening our familiarity and understanding of the language, the history and the culture around us,” he said.
“I believe that if we are able to live here together, Jews and Arabs, we will find the way to live together between the Jordan River and the sea, and across the whole region,” he added.
After his swearing-in ceremony at the Knesset, when Herzog arrived at the President’s Residence on Wednesday evening he found on the desk in his office a gracious letter from Rivlin.
In his letter, Rivlin wrote that Herzog will discover what a wonderful privilege he has been granted. Rivlin was certain that after years of public service, Herzog already knows “what a wonderful country we have, and what wonderful people live among us.” Nonetheless, wrote Rivlin, “Believe me, you don’t really know yet.
“In the shadow of disagreements and the divisions, you will find brave people who don’t talk about ‘together,’” he added, “they simply live it – day by day, hour by hour.”
Rivlin, who wandered all over the country meeting citizens of every stripe, described some in his letter, and wrote of how they had moved him, entering his heart, never to leave.
He did not mention the fact that some of his journeys were taken in disguise, courtesy of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), so that he could move around freely without being recognized.
Although Herzog and his wife will not properly move into the President’s Residence until after Tisha Be’av, which falls on July 18, he made a symbolic transition to the President’s Residence on the first evening of his presidency to join Rivlin in the establishment of a new tradition, whereby the outgoing president welcomes the incoming president with all the pomp and ceremonial fanfare that the president receives when on state visits abroad.
After reviewing an IDF honor guard and bowing to the national flag, Herzog moved on along the Mea She’arim Plaza, to where Rivlin was waiting to welcome him at the entrance to the main hall.
They then had a private meeting with senior advisers, returned to the main reception hall to make statements, after which Rivlin departed, and a new era was ushered in.