Five new ambassadors presented credentials to President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday, September 12.
They were Lina Antanavičienė of Lithuania, Hans Docter of the Netherlands, Lasha Zhvania of Georgia, Eric Danon of France, and Andreja Purkart Martinez of Slovenia.
In welcoming Antanavičienė, Rivlin said: “You are almost my ambassador.”
He explained that his family roots were in Lithuania, which he had visited as Speaker of the Knesset. He described his meeting with the Jewish community at that time as very emotional.
His family had come to Jerusalem 210 years ago, he said, because the Vilna Gaon told them that rather than pray three times a day to return to their ancestral homeland of Jerusalem, they should actually go there.
The ambassador responded that it was emotional for her to serve in Israel, adding that she looks forward to Rivlin’s visit to Lithuania next year for the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797), considered by many to be the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry in and since his generation.
Rivlin also commended Lithuania for its Holocaust education program, to which the ambassador responded that it was important to remember the past but to concentrate on the future
Read more in The Jerusalem Post article: https://www.jpost.
Photos: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania
