Balfour Declaration 100 anniversary thanking Non-Jewish Volunteers in Israel by Knesset Member

[Music] Dianna's volunteers and it's no coincidence that exactly 100 years ago today on the Hebrew calendar that Arthur Balfour a Christian Zionist from the United Kingdom signed the Balfour Declaration yes yes Israel has been reborn and Christians support for Israel is real it's something to celebrate and that's why we are here today I'm privileged to introduce our first speaker on the host of this event Knesset member sirene s Kelm Shireen is from the lucu party is a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and defense committee a member of the Knesset Christian allies caucus and works to strengthen relations and create cooperation with Christians from all over the world in order to mobilize political support for Israel please join me in welcoming member of Knesset sure in this Cup [Applause] thank you so much I would like to start maybe just by sending my condolences to the families of the victims of the shooting in the church in Texas we stand beside our friends we know we've got many friends in Texas and I send the letters also to official dad I'm really excited to be here today in the we know how history is something that repeats itself constantly we see events happening again and again and one of the sentences or one of the verses from the Bible that was just the in the recent for the shuttle ship one a fleshly house says let's make our master Sami one of the colony better be ha el ha an assertion of Exim they successfully grow they don't like the laugh of the ha ha the less you come and it means what it means in in our day language it means that God told Abraham to leave everything leave his family leave his property leave his friends everything that he knows and just stand up and walk towards the land that I will show you and I will make you I will bless you and I will make your name great and as much as this happened so many times throughout our history I think that now celebrating 100 years of the Balfour Declaration it was the first time that we held this site here finally after thousands of years someone someone recognized our rights here in Israel and so Jews from all around the world from Europe from northern Africa from Morocco from Germany from France from Iraq from Ethiopia throughout those years after left their property left their home with their family left everything that they knew in that country's four generation and walked to this plant to Israel I can tell you that when they arrived here it was in the land of milk and honey right we all know what was here and went great challenges we had here when we found that this country's as well but if we look today we were definitely been blessed we were protected through those who knows that we've experienced through the difficult challenges of creating an economy until today we'll be one of the leading countries in startups and innovations and agriculture and water technology etc but if we go through history we say we see many times where the Jews were persecuted and I know that you know many of these events if we go to the the Holocaust Spanish Inquisition everything that happened here so many countries we had very few individuals individual people that did amazing things to protect defense sane Jews the Jewish people the Jewish tradition like and they were not Jewish right most of them were Christians talking about the Balfour Declaration but people like Oh Evelyn milk right that rescued so many Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust or you know Donna Garcia an amazing woman in a Spanish Inquisition that rescue Jews and actually was the first one to print Bibles because burning all of our literature all of our Bibles to spread them to preserve them these special individuals are the one that helped us throughout the years throughout history to survive to survive and everything that we've been through and sometimes I ask myself I ask myself what is it why do the Jews or the Manabu were always persecuted always people tried to change our beliefs people tried to murder us right and many people will say - nobody said Jewish stubbornness they were those stubborn Jews but what what were we so stubborn about our values what we believe in and we know throughout the history we had many stubborn Jews that had these revolutionary ideas about the world the first one was Abraham right what a crazy revolutionary ideas he had that crazy Jew right living in a country with his family for the hola worshipping idols and then praying to God and giving them money to Kings and and and things like that in this little kid Abraham come and tell all of these people no you should not pray to statues or idols there is only one God and all he wants from you is not monies your prayer your mom and how much he was hated for that how much she was pres Akutan for that only belief trying to be murdered right and we held through our generation this belief and we were prosecuted for having a monotheistic religion right and today this is one of the foundation of modern society right a monotheistic religion revolution and crazy and it continues on throughout our history or that we take the ten commandments right and do not steal do not murder these are easy but let's take for example the Shabbos what does it mean that one day out of the week we all have to rest whether we are kings or animals or slaves this is the one day that you spend some time with your family that you relax it that you take it easy right and how many times throughout history people have tried to change that trying to force us not to keep the Shabbos what a crazy idea it was think about Kings but think who are these crazy Jews bringing this idea that nice place need to rest one day of the week how much money am i fed too loose how hey did we work for these kind of thoughts until today words so obvious that whether it is a Sunday or Saturday or Friday you've got one day to relax to spend time with your family to prayer to God right it's the one of the foundation of the socialist values of our society these kind of revolutionary thoughts of this stubbornness got I've seen so much travel throughout our history and it continues I can give many examples I think most of you know we can speak about a time someone who is that know most of your American I don't know is you if you know him but he actually funded a crazy idea called the American revolutions right that human beings should be independent and have rights in a democracy and about what crazy persons who invest all of these money and convince other people to invest money in this crazy idea and never asked for centrally dying back right and history repeats itself and today we're in a very similar situation these crazy that's revolutionary thoughts how dare you bring these ideas and those values with you to the Middle East to Israel to found a country that is based on these values of democracy of equality of freedom all of these liberties how dare you bring these ideas to all of these countries surrounding us who do not believe in those values and how hated we are for doing just that by all of our neighboring countries so in history repeats itself today it is important to also value and cherish the amazing support of people individuals that are supporting Israel but then their love and their prayer and come and volunteer here in Israel to support these ideas those crazy ideas that this is possible that no matter how complicated the situation is is how diverse your communities are how many different backgrounds we have here in Israel different religions Christians Muslims Jews been doing Druze should case and and so on those values are something that is possible we are the proof that this is possible we are raising a flag of hope to other minorities around the Middle East that you may be one day this will be possible for them as well [Applause] and so as we had throughout history baleful and Donna Garcia and the Nirvana Mela we have you today doing amazing incredible work with your governments in explaining to them the truth about Israel bringing the lights out getting their support in prayer and gathering all of your communities to prayer and then your thoughts to Israel to come and volunteer here be active in the field organizing events like this and other events in your countries and in Israel that explain what we are doing here what Israel really mean with all the ties that with what is happening in the media and so I would like to thank first Sofia that has organized - you're gonna light your van Tommy thank you so much thank you so much for bringing all of these volunteers from around the world to experience it to then share it in their countries in their home in their churches as well and thank to all of you all of these individuals and organizations that are making history with us today thank you very much [Applause] [Music]