Transcript of Comments by His Excellency, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin:

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

Dr. Hillel Newman, Consul General of Israel.

Professor Dov Waxman. Soraya and

Sharon Nazarian, distinguished guests.

Before appreciating the very idea of

getting this award, I would like to tell

you that I came to you here in Los

Angeles not only as the President of

Israel, but also as a Jerusalemite. As

member of the Rivlin family, I'm here

along with my daughter. My daughter is

eighth generation born in Jerusalem, and

her daughters �� and her daughters are

ninth generation born in Jerusalem.

We came to Jerusalem in the year 1809

not because it was the year 1809.

We came all the way from Vilna not

because we have suffered in Vilna. Vilna

was defined at the time as Jerusalem of

the north. And we were living there and

Judaism was in prosperity, and the

head of the family and our rabbi, the

Vilna Gaon, the "Genius of Vilna," have said

to us, "Why should we pray the Rivlin

family three times a day to God to

return us back to Jerusalem? Let's go to

Jerusalem!" No one is stopping us. And why we should go in 1809? Because in 1809

according to the Jewish calendar, it

would be the year Taf-Kuf-Ahyin. Three

letters that make sense in one word in

Hebrew: TKA. TKA is sound and sound is

sound the Great Shofar, the Great Horn, to

proclaim freedom. Let's go to Jerusalem.

250 members of our family and

pupils of the Vilna Gaon came to

Jerusalem and they were welcomed

by all the Jerusalemites, most of them

Muslims, some of them Christians,

some of them Armenians, and everyone have

received us in really open hands and

open heart because they thought

that if people will get to Jerusalem,

maybe the redemption of Jerusalem will

get to be fulfilled. And... we are there

since then. Unfortunately, we had there

some ups and downs with our Jerusalemite

cousins and Jerusalemite friend. We

altogether are living there. We are not

doomed to live there together. It's our

destiny to live together, as I've

said before. And we are trying, we

are trying to convince them that it's not

too bad to live along with us in the

city of Jerusalem, which is a microcosm

of all the conflict that became a

tragedy between us and our cousins and

the, uh, our friends in Jerusalem from the

Muslim side or from the Christian side.

I am also here as a very good friend,

although one of them was my tutor, my

professor at the University, but I served

with him in the army as well. Professor

Aharon Barak. I'm very proud to have

the same opportunity to get the

award. It is a great honor.

Aharon Barak is a great man. And more

than that, a year ago, my dear friend

Amos Oz have passed away, and he was

one of the greatest authors of Israel in

our time, God bless his soul. And he was

also one of the people who have got this

award and I'm so proud to be now a

member in the same �� group

which is a real great honor to all of

you. My dear friends, ladies and

gentlemens, as we say in Hebrew,

morotai verabotai. The story of Younes

and Soraya Nazarian and the Iranian-Jewish community is inspiring. In only a few

decades, this community has made

tremendous contribution to the city of

Los Angeles, to the American Jewish

community, and of course, to Israel. The

Nazarian family is a model of

commitment to the Jewish people and to

the State of Israel, and I'm

honored, I'm honored as I said

before to receive this award on the

of the Center's tenth year anniversary

here at the UCLA, the University

of California. So let me say to you

thank you. And as we say in Hebrew,

toda raba. This Center is an

expression of the deep belief that

education is the key of promoting change.

This is a belief that I share with all

my heart. It is at the heart of my

efforts to address one of Israel's

greatest challenges today. Israel is a

success story, yes, we can say a miracle.

In 72 years, almost 73 years now, we have

gone from a developing country to a

world leader in innovation. But if we

want to preserve this miracle,

we must keep Israeli society united.

There is no other way. We have to keep

the whole Jewish people in united, and

because of that I've had it already here

in Los Angeles three years ago. We are

living in Israel four tribes, but we have

a fifth tribe, and the fifth tribe are

the people in the diaspora. All our

Jewish brothers and sister, we are all

one family.

We have responsibility, one for each

other. So as I've said we must keep

Israeli society united, and the Jewish

society united. We must close the gap

between those sectors of Israeli society

that are part of the Israeli success

story and those that got left behind.

Especially, as it was mentioned, Israel's

Charedim and Arab sectors. As the four

main sectors of Israeli society become closer

in size, we must be built a new

partnership based on trust, respect,

economic integration, and mobility. That

is why I launched the Israeli Open

Initiative, which focuses on

four core elements of society:

Basic education, higher education

and employment, the public sector, and the

local government.

In the last decade, we made big progress

in raising awareness and opening the

gates of Israeli society. Now, it is time

to create together a short story

of experience of what it is to be an

Israeli. We still have a long road ahead

of us, but I am truly convinced that we

will succeed. Actually, we cannot will

succeed. We must succeed. There is no

other way. This is the key to the

prosperity and success of the state of

Israel as a state that both Jewish and

democratic, democratic and Jewish at the

same time. Israel is not democracy only

to the Jewish people. Israel is democracy

to all its citizens and all

the people who are living along with us

in Israel.

Thank God when I was born 80 years ago,

there were at about 250,000 Jews in

Jerusalem � in Israel, most of them were in

Jerusalem, 60,000 of them. Now, out of nine

million citizens in Israel, we are seven

million Jews, and we are all family. Dear

friends, ladies and gentlemen, just as we

work to strengthen the unity of Israeli

society, we must work to ensure the unity

of the Jewish people. We are one nation,

one family. We have cousins, we have

first cousins, second cousins,

we have brothers, we have sisters,

but we are one family. We are all

responsible one for each other, as we say,

Israel arevim zelaza. We must deepen

our ties and sense of shared dignity and,

of course, destiny. We in Israel are

deeply concerned by the rise of

anti-Semitic attacks against the fifth

tribe: you, the Jewish communities in

the Diaspora. For you, raising of

anti-Semitism is not a theoretical issue, it is a real,

real threat. From the attack on

the Netzer synagogue to the terrible

shooting in Poway, last month I must

say to all of you, we have hosted � people

are saying that I have hosted, but we in

Israel have hosted almost 50 world leaders

in Jerusalem. Kings, presidents, prime

ministers, head of states, and the

speakers and presidents of many

parliaments. They each expressed their

commitment to fighting anti-Jewish hate.

I believe they understand that

anti-Semitism is not just a Jewish

problem. Anti-Semitism, racism, hatred, and

fascism are a problem for all societies

that value tolerance and democracy.

Fighting anti-Semitism does not mean

silencing debate about Israel. However, on

many campuses, those promoting academic

boycotts seek not to encourage debate

but to shut it down. Along with the

challenge of academic boycotts,

we are now facing the challenge of the

United Nation blacklist, which

encourage economic boycotts on many,

many factories and companies in Israel. We

thank from the bottom of our heart

the United States of America for

standing with us against the justified

political decision. Boycotts

do not advance peace. Israeli and

Palestinians, as I've said before and I

would like to repeat it, the Israelis

and Palestinians are not doomed to live

together, it is our destiny and we can

do it by creating confidence between

the two people. They have to have

confidence with us and we have to have

confidence with them. We have to believe

them and they have to believe us. They

have to understand that we are

imperialist, that we have returned to our

homeland, to our fatherland after 2,000

years of praying to return back to

Jerusalem every day and day. It means

that Jerusalem is not the matter that we

have decided to get to Jerusalem because

the our people were living there. We came

to Jerusalem because it was the place of

our shrine, because it was the heart of

the Jewish people, it was the heart of

Judaism. We came back to our land and we

have place for all of us. We have to

understand that they are, they were born

there and they have the right also to

express themselves in the place that

they were born. And we can do it, we can do it by

creating confidence by doing everything

to understand that although we had some

difficulties at the time, to understand

that we have to live together, we can

live together and it is to our great

interests of both sides to live together.

As we say, we must build trust between us

and common future based on cooperation.

That is a win-win for both of us. We are

deeply grateful for the bipartisan

support for Israel security, prosperity,

and the U.S.-Israeli alliance. Maintaining

bipartisan support is critical... critical to Israel's

national security. The U.S.-Israel alliance

is based on our deep shared values and

on our critical shared interests. This

partnership has always been above party

politics and do and so it must remain,

and I am praying for that.. that it will

remain. I am in very good relationship

with both, with the Republican ��

Republicans and with the Democrats and

when you ever defined me as a rightist

or from the right side, I'm of course

from the right side against the long

side.

Friends, thank you again. Thank you again

for this honor and thank you for all

that you are. As we say Toda raba. So God

bless, God bless the United States of

America. God bless Israel. God bless all

of you. Thank you so very much.