[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 19388]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          OUR ONE GOD OF FAITH

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                          HON. E. SCOTT RIGELL

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 2, 2015

  Mr. RIGELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit a statement on behalf 
of my constituent, Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman. Rabbi Zoberman is the 
Founding Rabbi of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach, 
Virginia. Rabbi Zoberman asked me to submit the following remarks:

       We are grateful for our one God's blessings, who bring us 
     together to be one family, gratefully united and gloriously 
     diverse through the divine commandments of loving kindness.
       We have gathered during our sixth annual Veterans Day 
     service at the enchanting sites of the Reba and Sam Sandler 
     Campus and the Simon Family JCC of our beloved Tidewater 
     Jewish Community, home to the stately Jewish War Veterans 
     Monument and captivating Holocaust sculpture linked to the 
     embracing Gifford Holocaust Memorial Garden. Let us pause for 
     both heartfelt gratitude and sacred reflection in the 
     enviable spirit of our unique Tidewater togetherness.
       In this awesome region of perhaps the world's most 
     concentrated military might, we owe much to the descendants 
     of the Maccabees, our heroic sisters and brothers in uniform 
     from past, present and future, for safeguarding our great 
     American nation as well as its undying dream. We continuously 
     advocate for and advance the cause of our leading democracy 
     so that it may ever be a guiding and gracious beacon of light 
     and consecrated resolve to all near and far.
       We are painfully mindful of terrorism's darkness unleashed 
     by Iran and its Lebanese and Palestinian proxies, along with 
     Syria's Basher al-Assad and the Islamic State with its 
     affiliates, threatening the very essence of human 
     civilization to which the Jewish people have immeasurably and 
     devotedly contributed. The past Thanksgiving celebration, 
     modeled after the Biblical festival Sukkot, is a poignant 
     reminder of the vital link and unshakeable bond between 
     America's very foundation and the Jewish heritage.
       The courageous Pilgrims joyfully regarded themselves as 
     walking in the shoes of the Israelites who fled from Egypt's 
     House of Bondage, and were inspired by the ideals and values 
     of the Hebrew scriptures with which they fell in love. In 
     fact, they wanted Hebrew to be the official language of the 
     New World but there were not enough Hebrew scholars around. 
     Imagine there would have been no need for a separate Hebrew 
     school for our children. The past Thanksgiving eve, my 
     congregation Beth Chaverim and Eastern Shore Chapel Episcopal 
     Church held our 16th annual Joint Interfaith Thanksgiving 
     Service. What an endearing display of the American tradition 
     of sharing across lines of faith.
       On November 9, 2015, we commemorated the 77th anniversary 
     of Kristallnacht (The Night of the Broken Glass), the 
     beginning of the end of European Jewry. We shall always 
     cherish our own Arnold Lind, of blessed memory, who at age 
     ten raced into his burning Synagogue in Muhlheim in Germany 
     to retrieve his beautiful Wimple, witness to the Shoah, a 
     memorial to the great German Jewry. He was fortunate to 
     arrive with his family to these shores of freedom and proudly 
     served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
       I humbly stand before you as a member of the family of the 
     surviving remnant miraculously plucked from the burning 
     fires. At the mature old age of three and a half, I was 
     already a veteran of Germany's Wetzlar Displaced persons camp 
     in the American zone of occupation, but I am also a veteran 
     of the Israel Defense Forces of a reborn nation. My father 
     Yechiel, of blessed memory, served in the Russian Army's 
     118th Infantry Division decimated at Stara Rusa by the German 
     onslaught which he survived.
       Let the United States and its partners do their best on 
     behalf of the present day multitude of refugees from war-torn 
     countries, particularly Syria, who seek the shelter of a 
     welcoming home. May Shalom's divine blessings of peace enable 
     us to turn violence into vision, pain into promise, fear into 
     faith, and darkness into light. Amen.

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