“Har Hazeisim is one of the holiest and most significant sites in Judaism which makes what your Committee is doing so important,” Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told a capacity crowd in Monsey on Thursday evening. “We are not trespassers but are a link to 2700 years of Jewish history,” the Ambassador said at a special Monsey NY reception hosted by the International Committee for Har Hazeitim (ICHH) at the Fireside Restaurant.
The evening was opened by Dr. Paul Rosenstock, a member of the Executive Committee of the ICHH. Gary Barnett, the president and founder of Extell Development Company, a real estate development firm, introduced Ambassador Friedman. The Ambassador spoke about some of his accomplishments during his tenure such as presiding over moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Yerushalayim, US acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the important initiative that led to the Abraham Accords.
Menachem Lubinsky who together with his brother Avraham founded the ICHH in 2010 noted the recent historic appropriation of nearly $40 million by the Israeli government for security upgrades on Har Hazeisim. He revealed that the Israeli Police under its commander Chief Insp. Doron Turgeman will soon institute many new security measures including some 240 new state of the art surveillance cameras and additional gating. Lubinsky also revealed significant progress in the construction of a magnificent Visitor Education Center on Har Hazeisim which the ICHH is partnering with the Israeli government and the Municipality of Jerusalem. The Center will also include a new Israeli Police Security Center.
ICHH received many accolades for the historic security grant, which was announced last month by Rabbi Yitzchak Goldknopf, Minister of Housing and Construction during a tour of Har Hazeisim sponsored by ICHH. It was the first time that the State budget included such a grant for Har Hazeisim. Avraham thanked MK Erez Malul, who heads the Knesset Caucus on Har Hazeitim, the largest in the Knesset, for his role in securing Har Hazeisim.
The security measures have significantly increased the number of visitors to the sacred mountain. Police estimate that the average number of daily visitors has risen from less than 400 nearly five years ago to well over 2000 today. Tens of thousands ascend to Har Hazeisim on the yahrzeits of the Ohr Hachaim, the Rebbes of Zhvill, the Rebbes of Gur and others. A growing number of visitors daven at the various kevarim of the leading rabbonim and admorim over the generations, the burial place of the Nevi’im, the site where the ashes of the parah adumah were placed, the new Chodesh first proclaimed and other historic places associated with the period of the Bais Hamikdash.
It was an elegant event at Fireside which included the participation of ICHH Board members Dov Fishoff, Dr. Alan Mazurek, David Urbach, Dr. Rosenstock, Charles Miller, and Peretz Levin and consultant Rabbi Marty Katz. Some of the sponsors of the Monsey Har Hazeisim event included Madison Title, and Royal Wine (Herzog Family).
