[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 113 (Monday, July 13, 2026)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E667]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





  CELEBRATING WITH LADY LIBERTY, AMERICAN FREEDOM'S 250TH ANNIVERSARY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. JENNIFER A. KIGGANS

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 13, 2026

  Mrs. KIGGANS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record 
remarks submitted at the request of a Virginia Beach constituent, Rabbi 
Dr. Israel Zoberman of Temple Lev Tikvah, and are a reflection of his 
views:
     There they stood, God's assembled
     Hosts from every corner known
     In Ellis Island's Registry Room,
     With eyes turned upward
     Toward a majestic ceiling,
     The pinnacle of a promising universe.
     They brought their millennial prayers
     And the crushing burden carried
     To the doorstep of a new world.
     If only they'd be allowed
     To enter, to be free
     Awaiting too is our loving
     Mother Lady Liberty whose light
     Saves at the sea of stormy life,
     Triumphantly lifting high the torch
     Of unquenched freedom--
     Humanity's embedded inspiration--
     That here human dignity--divinity
     Would not surrender despite setbacks--
     The alarming rise of appalling old
     Antisemitisim included--upheld by
     The indispensable Angel of Responsibility,
     A guarding-guiding presence that cannot
     Be shaken, with towering Lady Liberty's
     Tears of joy and sorrow spread in waters
     Ever restless, Will her anxious children
     Huddled with heartfelt universal prayer
     Soon find out that they wouldn't be abandoned.
     That the God of all the troubled accompanies
     Them to the long beckoning Land of Promise,
     Their Promised Land as well?
     Don't let the grand American dream vanish,
     It has already lasted 250 years, to ever be matched
     By a grand American reality blessed by Shalom's
     Eternal blessings of healing, hope and harmony!
  Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman is founder of Temple Lev Tikvah and 
Honorary Senior Rabbi Scholar at Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal Church, 
both in Virginia Beach. He is past National Interfaith Chair for JCPA 
(Jewish Counsel for Public Affairs). He is a member of the Holocaust's 
surviving remnant of European Jewry.

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