Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, Michael Herzog calls for Israel to ‘reflect deeply’ on mistakes surrounding Oct. 7

Connecting the Oct. 7 Hamas terror assaults on the themes and traditions of the Jewish Excessive Vacation season, Israeli Ambassador to america Michael Herzog mentioned the Israeli folks must “replicate deeply” to grasp how the Hamas assault occurred.

“There may be an inner logic to this cycle, as a result of throughout these holidays, we first do a giant soul looking, the place we went improper and to grasp what errors we made,” Herzog mentioned talking at an atypically somber Rosh Hashanah ceremony on the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “Positively, we as a folks must replicate deeply on what occurred, what went improper that allowed Oct. 7 to occur. Then we repent our errors. Then we decide to study from our errors and proper our path.”

He mentioned that path will finally result in a brighter “new starting.”

Herzog described the present warfare as Israel’s “longest and hardest” since its warfare for independence, including that Israel is preventing each Hamas and an “worldwide marketing campaign to disclaim the Jewish folks’s proper to self-determination and to disclaim the Jewish state its proper to self-defense.”

The Israeli ambassador additionally gave thanks “from the underside of my coronary heart [to] the U.S. administration, Congress — on either side of the aisle — and the American folks for his or her unbelievable help.”

Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy nationwide safety advisor for cyber and rising expertise,  vowed that the administration “will proceed to help Israel as she seeks to defend herself. And certainly as Israel faces threats from Iran and Iranian proxies, the Israelis ought to know that Biden and the broader biden administration have their again.”

Neuberger mentioned that President Joe Biden is dedicated to securing the discharge of the remaining 101 hostages and returning tens of hundreds of residents of northern Israel to their properties. 

She additionally spoke in regards to the which means of Excessive Vacation traditions within the context of the Oct. 7 assaults and the continuing warfare.

Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the State Division’s particular envoy to watch and fight antisemitism, addressed the viewers, emphasizing that the Oct. 7 assaults and ongoing assaults by Hezbollah are grounded in antisemitism. She mentioned that the worldwide neighborhood’s response to the sexual violence dedicated by Hamas on Oct. 7 additionally displays antisemitism.

“The human rights organizations, the feminist organizations failed miserably,” she mentioned. “Or, they succeeded in exhibiting their antisemitism.”

Lipstadt highlighted the antisemitic threats at residence, making particular reference to assaults on Jewish college students on the College of Michigan as they’ve left Jewish establishments on campus.

She famous that the scholars had come collectively to create their very own safety program as a result of they’d “misplaced religion within the capability — not the willingness, however the capability, of the native authorities to guard them.”

She mentioned that such incidents present how antisemitism erodes religion in democracy each in its perpetrators and in its victims. She additionally described antisemitism as a nationwide safety risk that may destabilize international locations.

Zioness founder Amanda Berman emceed the occasion, which featured songs and prayers from D.C.-area rabbis and cantors. Meals served on the occasion included Israeli greens, sabich and rooster pita sandwiches, with a number of selections of sauce, and basbousa cake, malabi and contemporary mint tea for dessert. The wine served on the occasion got here from wineries in northern Israel impacted by Hezbollah’s assaults.

Every chair within the auditorium additionally featured a card explaining that the Embassy and the Jewish Nationwide Fund would plant bushes in Israel in honor of lives misplaced since Oct. 7.