    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book II)]
    [October 23, 1993]
    [Pages 1813-1816]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the B'nai B'rith 150th Anniversary Havdalah Service
    October 23, 1993

        Thank you very much. Mr. Schiner, Mr. Spitzer, distinguished
    platform guests, ladies and gentlemen. Hillary and I are delighted to be
    with you tonight, honored to be a part of your

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    150th anniversary.
        When I appeared before your international convention a year ago, I
    said I would be honored to help you celebrate this anniversary if you
    would help me get into a position so that you would want me to help
    celebrate it. So tonight I thank you on two counts.
        I am deeply honored to have been a part of your Havdalah service. It
    is always a great honor for me as a person of faith to be able to share
    the spirituality of other Americans. Far from being separate from the
    rest of your life, the spirituality that is renewed by you on every
    Sabbath infuses everything that you do.
        This ceremony has been observed in captivity and exile and in
    freedom, on every continent and in virtually every country, and yet
    essentially it remains the same. And it is especially appropriate that
    we observe it here this evening on the occasion of your 150th
    anniversary on the steps of this memorial dedicated to the father of
    religious freedom in America, Thomas Jefferson, on the occasion of the
    year in which we celebrate his 250th birthday and the 50th anniversary
    of this Jefferson Memorial.
        Jefferson attained a great deal of glory in his life. He was known
    and revered around the world. And yet when he died, he asked that on his
    tombstone it be printed only that he was the author of the Declaration
    of Independence, the founder of the University of Virginia, and perhaps
    most of all, the author of the Statute of Virginia for Religious
    Freedom. In other words, Jefferson understood that in the end, the
    deepest power of all in human affairs, the power of ideas and ideals. In
    words inscribed just up these steps on this memorial, he said,
    ``Almighty God hath created the mind free . . . No man shall be
    compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or
    shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinion or belief,
    but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their
    opinions in matters of religion.''
        That simple premise on which our first amendment is based is, I
    believe, the major reason why here in America more people believe in
    God, more people go to church or synagogue, more people put religion at
    the center of their lives than in any other advanced society on Earth.
    Our Government is the protector of freedom of every faith because it is
    the exclusive property of none. Just as you keep the Sabbath separate to
    keep it holy, we all keep our faiths free from Government coercion so
    that they can always be voluntary offerings of free and joyous spirits.
    And just as the Sabbath spirit illuminates every day of your lives,
    Americans of every faith try to take the values we learn from our
    religions and put them to work in our communities. No one has done that
    better than the Americans who do the work of B'nai B'rith.
        From your founding a century and a half ago--you may clap for
    yourselves; I think that's fine--[applause]--from your founding a
    century and a half ago on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, you've been
    dedicated to community service, to individual responsibility, to the
    struggle against every form of bigotry and injustice by investing in
    education and health care and helping the less fortunate, by tearing
    down barriers to achievement and weaving a fabric of mutuality and
    social responsibility. You have helped people from every faith and
    background to live lives of genuine accomplishment.
        Even when I was growing up in Arkansas, I knew of the efforts of
    this wonderful organization. Back in 1914, you opened the Levi Hospital
    in my hometown of Hot Springs. And after all these years it still serves
    hundreds and hundreds every year without regard to their ability to pay.
    Today, the B'nai B'rith has also opened a senior citizens housing
    complex in my hometown. And believe it or not, those acts that help
    individuals are the things that I try hardest to keep in mind as
    President when making laws and making policies so that the spirit which
    animates people in their daily lives, helping each other one on one, can
    drive the Presidency and the Government of this great land.
        It was that spirit which led me to propose and Congress to enact a
    new program for national service to offer tens of thousands of our young
    people the chance to earn their way through college by serving their
    communities and rebuilding this country and giving something to one
    another and thinking about someone besides themselves in those important
    and formative years of their youth. And I want to thank a distinguished
    member of the American-Jewish community, Eli Segal, my good friend, for
    being the real father of national service, for shepherding it through
    its creation and its enactment and now leading it along its way.
        I want to thank you, too, for being there for America when tragedy
    strikes at home or abroad: flood victims in the Midwest; hurricane
    victims in Florida; earthquake victims not simply

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    in northern California but in Mexico City, Iran, and Armenia, they are
    all in your debt. You helped to address the crisis in Somalia, launching
    your own drive to raise funds to stave off starvation when 1,000 people
    a day were dying there. In the cause of our common efforts, nearly a
    million lives have been saved.
        The spirit you bring to your work explains the sense of kinship
    Americans of every faith have always felt for the state of Israel. It
    explains our yearning for peace in that land, sacred to three great
    religions. It explains the joy every American felt when the promise of
    peace for Israelis, for Palestinians, for all the peoples of the Middle
    East was made tangible on September the 13th in a single, stunning
    handshake.
        I say to you tonight what you already know, that even in the joy of
    that moment, we must all remember that a lasting peace requires hard
    work, that enmity, stretching back to the founding of the state of
    Israel and before, cannot be made to vanish simply with the stroke of a
    pen. But let us not forget how far we have come. It would have been
    unimaginable just 2 months ago to think that between now and September
    13th, the leaders of Israel have actually sat down with the leaders of
    Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Qatar. And there is more to come. Israelis
    and Palestinians are engaged in intense negotiations to implement their
    agreements. Israel and Arab business people are meeting to lay the
    foundations of economic cooperation. And I am very proud of the
    cooperation I have seen in the United States between American Jews and
    Arab-Americans, working on what they can do together to make the peace
    agreement work.
        Clearly, more must be done, and we have not a moment to waste. Just
    yesterday, we were reminded anew with the tragic killing of a moderate
    Arab leader that there are those who have a greater stake in the
    continuing misery of the Palestinians than in the hope of peace for all
    the Middle East. We have not a moment to waste.
        I am committed to building on the momentum we have created to
    achieve nothing less than a comprehensive settlement, one in which
    Israel secures real lasting peace with all her neighbors. To do that we
    have to be able to demonstrate that when Israel takes genuine risks for
    peace, the Arab world responds with a similar commitment to build a new
    era of peace and prosperity with Israel as a partner, not pariah.
        The future for Israel and for the Jewish people is bright and full
    of promise tonight. For the first time we have the chance to achieve
    peace, and I am determined to see that it is real, secure, and enduring.
    We live in a time when ancient enmities are fading. We saw it not just
    in the handshake of Rabin and Arafat but in the remarkable partnership
    of Mandela and de Klerk, people who are giving hope that tomorrow can
    really be different from and better than today.
        I ask all of you to think about what these times mean for us as
    Americans and for us as individuals. At prayer this morning many of you
    read the passages from the Torah where God asks Abraham not only to
    leave his father's house but to go forward to a new land and a new way
    of living and thinking.
        Tonight, as we stand 7 years from a new century and a new
    millennium, our world is being transformed dramatically by political
    change, technological developments, dramatic global economic changes. We
    stand here tonight following the footsteps of wise men and women who
    faced the future with confidence, who offered a helping hand, who opened
    their hearts to God and asked to be led so that future generations might
    have better lives. That is what we, too, must do. As Thomas Jefferson
    did, as the founders of B'nai B'rith did, as Americans have done at
    every moment of change and challenge, I ask you on this occasion of your
    150th anniversary to joy in the progress for peace in the Middle East,
    to take great pride in your own accomplishments and the givings but to
    resolve today that we will lay the foundation of progress and peace here
    at home: with health care that is always there; with an economy that
    serves the poor as well as those who aren't, that gives every man and
    woman a chance; with an end to hatred and bigotry, a commitment to make
    our diversity in this country a strength and not a weakness; with a
    commitment to engage one another in serious, moral conversations but to
    slow down the rhetoric of screaming and condemnation so that we can
    appreciate we are all the children of God.
        In the end, I ask that we dedicate ourselves anew to the timeless
    promise of American life first proclaimed by Thomas Jefferson in whose
    large shadow we stand tonight, the promise of ``life, liberty, and the
    pursuit of happiness.'' For all that B'nai B'rith has done to make that
    prom-

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    ise real and for all you will do in the tomorrows to come, on behalf of
    all the people of the United States, I say a profound thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:45 p.m. at the Jefferson Memorial. In his
    remarks, he referred to Kent Schiner, international president, and Jack
    J. Spitzer, former international president, B'nai B'rith.