I am honored and humbled and moved to be welcomed here today in the Parliament of Romania, sanctuary of democracy and supreme symbol of the values that sustain the Romanian nation as a free, open society. I thank President Nicu\u0219or Dan for inviting me to visit the Republic of Romania, and I am delighted to join you today in your nation’s capital, beautiful Bucharest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the President of the State of Israel, I stand here representing a country, a nation, and centuries of deep, rich, moving and painful history that bind our nations together, to one another, in solidarity, in trust, in goodwill, and in hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was here in Romania, in the city of Ia\u0219i, where a Jewish poet by the name of Naftali Herz Imber, authored the first draft of what would later become the national anthem of the State of Israel. He called the poem in Hebrew \u2018Tikvateinu\u2019\u2014Our Hope. This poem would become a banner cry for anyone who has seen the arc of promise within the abyss of pain. Naftali Herz Imber etched these words into the national story of the Jewish people, and onto the human conscience at large, contending that we have not yet lost our hope. This prophetic poet recognized how far that hope would one day carry our people, through the rageful turn of history, back home, back to our homeland, the Land of Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear presidents, dear friends, hope is what led us here. For centuries, Romanian towns and villages pulsed with Jewish life. Jews were part and parcel of the Romanian people, contributing to every facet of Romanian life, in culture and the arts, philosophy, and academy. Jewish rhythms and rituals colored every landscape of this great nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, on this very same soil, those centuries of life evaporated by the cruelty of man. Yesterday, I stood in the Jewish cemetery of Ia\u0219i, in the presence of the President of the Senate and the Mayor of Ia\u0219i, esteemed leaders of the nation, the city, and the Jewish community, over a mass grave containing the remains of twenty-two Romanian Jews, butchered in the Ia\u0219i pogrom of 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
85 years after those infernal summer days, during which many thousands of Jewish women, children, and men were consumed in the demonic hatred of the masses, in the massacres, pogroms, and death trains, at last we brought the bodies of our sisters and brothers to dignified burial and eternal rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said yesterday in my eulogy what I repeat now: The acts of burial and commemoration do not erase the suffering of the victims, nor do they mitigate the ethical stain of the perpetrators or the societies that produced them. But they do enable us to restore the humanity to those who were denied it. In Hebrew it is called \u2018the ultimate act of true compassion.\u2019 I am grateful to the Romanian authorities for their extensive efforts to realize this need for historical justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This act of commemoration is more than a moral tribute to the victims; it is a sacred duty that we are obliged to uphold. Commemoration points us toward recollection and memory of what is no longer\u2014and toward obligation and commitment to what we must build, to what we must all aspire to become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, from the wreckage of genocidal antisemitism that ravaged the Jewish people and shattered all of humanity, emerged a deep cry, resonating throughout the family of nations: a cry for repair, healing, and justice. A cry for fraternity, cooperation, and building. A cry for hope, from deep within the inferno. That cry served as the foundation for a post\u2013World War II global moral order grounded in freedom and human rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the young State of Israel rose from the ashes of the Holocaust and emerged from an ancient national dream, and as we witnessed the restoration of humanity from the brink of annihilation, Romania stepped forward boldly and courageously. In June of 1948, just one month after Israel\u2019s Declaration of Independence, Romania recognized our young state. Throughout 78 years of our unique bilateral relations, we have succeeded in carefully cultivating a language we can share, a friendship we can trust, a hope we can fulfill. Our relationship has evolved in so many spheres and has ripened into a strategic anchor of stability and collaboration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to thank our respective governments and ambassadors for enhancing the relations. I want to thank Romania’s Ambassador in Israel, Dr. Radu Ioanid, a renowned historian, and Israel’s Ambassador in Romania, Dr. Lior Ben Dor, and their teams, for furthering our close diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent years, both nations have played an increasingly important role in bolstering each other’s security and regional and international security. And while the Holocaust of Romanian Jewry remains a foundational trauma, the Romanian Jewish story and the marvelous Jewish community have been a pillar in the relations between our peoples. It was Romanian Jews who established some of the earliest communities in Israel, such as Rosh Pina back in 1882, harnessing their magnificent talents towards renewed Jewish statehood, towards building a home and building a nation. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews, perhaps millions if you include descendants, are a cornerstone of Israeli society. This bears particular significance in such times as we are living, times in which the ancient poison of Jew-hatred has awakened once again. Times that demand a response far too familiar, but timelessly relevant: Never Again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You, dear friends, deputies, and leaders of the Republic of Romania, have heard this moral calling. Romania has become a global role model in Holocaust remembrance, historical accountability, and education. I have seen how your efforts to combat antisemitism, hate speech and xenophobia, and your proactive adoption of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, have served as a gold standard in protecting thriving democracies from the poison of hate. I commend your robust legislation, including the bill initiated by our friend, MP Silviu Vexler, and adopted by this distinguished chamber. We all hope to see the implementation of the most recent bill combating antisemitism. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear friends, when the single most barbaric attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust was unleashed on October 7th, Romania\u2019s response was clear and unequivocal. Romanian leadership immediately and unambiguously condemned the Hamas massacre, standing as a beacon of humanity and a glimmer of hope in our darkest hour. Then-Prime Minister Ciolacu\u2019s visit to Israel, on behalf of the Romanian people just at the beginning of that trauma, sent a powerful message of support that has helped my people find strength and courage to rebuild. The phone calls from then-President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, also gave me comfort. Romania continuously displayed remarkable human solidarity in the painstaking fight to release our hostages brutally held in the tunnels of Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ladies and gentlemen, Romania\u2019s principled position is exactly what is required from the international community at this particular point in our geopolitical reality. Because by now there can be no doubt: the threat posed by the Iranian regime and its proxies extends far beyond the Middle East. It challenges global stability, naval freedom, and democracies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Americans and Israelis went to war with Iran to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, and prevent this Empire of Evil and its proxies from threatening all peace-loving nations in the Middle East. I commend US President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu for their leadership in this war. I must stress, to you and to the world: Israel is not opposed to a diplomatic outcome of the war. On the contrary, we seek peace. We dream of peace on all frontiers; it is our fondest hope and deepest yearning. But Iran\u2019s desire to become a nuclear threshold state is a tangible threat to Israel, and Iran\u2019s audacity to dictate the future of Lebanon undermines the possibility of moving towards peace and security. The most recent MOU between Israel and Lebanon, signed in Washington a few days ago, is a major breakthrough for peace and can serve as a cornerstone moving forward. It requires the removal of Hezbollah and enables a platform for a true peace agreement between the countries. I thank President Trump and Secretary Rubio and the Administration for sponsoring this important step, and I call upon the European Union and the international community to support it, to support the stability and economy of Lebanon, and the security of Israel. I thank the Romanian government for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, in defense of regional resilience, in defense of the moral architecture we have all worked to build, and I have spoken about it at length today with President Dan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. President, dear deputies, leaders and friends, Elie Wiesel, the great son of Romania who passed away ten years ago, was a Nobel Laureate and teacher of all humanity, who survived the Holocaust, and went on to dedicate his life to the awakening of the human conscience. He wrote a beautiful and special sentence: “Hope is the memory of the future.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yesterday, as we stood over the open graves of twenty-two Jews murdered 85 years ago, we recalled the destruction and everything in its wake, but we also sensed the hope that was somehow reborn thereafter. Naftali Herz Imber\u2019s poem, which began as Our Hope, found its place in Israel\u2019s national anthem as the<\/em> Hope, HaTikva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like truth, which is not subjective but universal, hope is not exclusive to any one people, nor can it manifest fully when limited to one nation or to one country. Hope is best realized when it spreads as far as the eye can see, and as deep as the soul can carry\u2014when it reaches the broadest span of humanity. That is the message of the national anthem of the Jewish democratic State of Israel, first drafted in Romania, and carrying us through the darkness back to our most fundamental, basic human yearning: the yearning for hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thank you, dear members of the Parliament, for this courageous reckoning with our past, and this bold statement to our present and our future: Together we can heal, together we can build, together we build hope. \u00cempreun\u0103, construim speran\u021ba!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you, dear friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 29, 2026, President Isaac Herzog delivered an address before the joint plenary of the Romanian Parliament during his state visit to the country.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speeches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n