By COLlive reporter
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi excitedly received a traditional Jewish blessing bestowed upon her after her prominent speech at the AIPAC Conference in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.
“To be antisemitic is to be anti-American,” she stated in her public remarks and pledged continued bipartisan backing of Israel. “Support for Israel in America is bipartisan and bicameral — relentlessly bipartisan,” Pelosi said.
“We will never allow anyone to make Israel a wedge issue,” the California congresswoman vowed, according to the Algemeiner. “That pledge is proudly honored in this Congress where support for Israel remains iron-clad and bipartisan.”
“We’re proud to have so many champions of Israel serving as leaders and committee chairs,” she noted. “These leaders deeply understand the importance of the bonds between America and Israel, and they are working tirelessly to make those bonds even stronger.”
Her declaration of support for Israel and the Jewish community comes at a time when progressive members of the Democratic party chip away at the conventional support of the Jewish state.
Thanking her for taking a stand at AIPAC was Rabbi Chanina Sperlin, Vice President for Governmental Affairs for the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council (CHJCC) in Brooklyn, NY.
The meeting was set up by Congresswoman Yevette Clarke who represents Crown Heights and was also joined by Yoel Lefkowitz, a Satmar community activist, and Jacob Kornbluh, national politics reporter for Jewish Insider.
“I thanked the Speaker for her support of Israel,” Sperlin said, and emphasized Pelosi’s statement that support for Israel should be ironclad and bipartisan in the United States.
Sperlin also thanked Pelosi for her support to commute the former kosher meat executive Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin and said her input was essential for President Donald Trump to move forward with the release of Rubashkin from a 27-year sentence.
Pelosi thanked him for his kind words and if he is a rabbi and would he be willing to give her a blessing because Tuesday was her birthday. Sperlin responded back that he was in fact a Kohen and went on to bestow the priestly blessing of “Yevarechecha.”
Pelosi said she was moved that “Rabbi Sperlin gave me a blessing,” and added that when speaking to her Jewish grandchildren, “I’ll teach them about that.”
