Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks at the Festive Event at Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, Marking 59 Years since the Unification of Jerusalem

Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday evening (Thursday, 14 May 2026) [translated from Hebrew]:

"I don’t know if you know this, but I am a Levite. One hundred percent on this side, one hundred percent on that side. And when a Levite comes to the house of a Kohein he feels at home!

My dear friends, lovers of Jerusalem. My wife Sara and I always feel at home in this house, at home! I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the warm welcome, which always leaves a lasting mark on us, from visit to visit, G-d willing. I thank, first and foremost, our host, the head of the 'Mercaz HaRav' Yeshiva, a giant in Torah, a faithful friend, Rabbi Yaakov Shapira.

Honorable head of the yeshiva, the image of your late father, Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira, of blessed memory, stands before my eyes in this important hall. I remember our many meetings. I remember the light that radiated from his eyes. His smile, his wisdom, his love for Israel. He always strengthened me. You always strengthen me. You and your wife always strengthen me! And so, the image of another Torah scholar from this Yeshiva also stands before me: Rabbi of Jerusalem, Rabbi Aryeh Stern, of blessed memory, from whom we parted with deep sorrow a few days ago.

Distinguished Rabbis and rabbinical court judges. My dear friends the Ministers, my colleagues, and Members of Knesset, my colleagues, past and present. The present is also in the past, and the past organizes the present. Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion. Students of the Yeshiva. I am happy to see you all here on Jerusalem’s holiday.

This is a bit different from the last time I visited 'Mercaz HaRav'. It was this past Purim, at the start of Operation Roaring Lion.' Rabbi Shapira and I, with my wife Sara, and our children Yair and Avner, had the merit to read the Book of Esther here. We felt then, and I am sure each of you did from your own place, the rustle of the wings of history. The oppressor back then in Persia, and today’s oppressor of today in Persia, both sought to destroy us. Both have vanished.
Because at the moment of truth, we stood tall. We brought the war back to our enemies' gates. We defended our existence with infinite determination. What did I hear being sung here? 'Forever, forever, forever.'

In the past two years, we have shown the entire world what mighty powers are inherent in our people, in our country, in our army, in our heritage. We rose like a lion cub. We roared like a lion. And do you know what the greatest thing we did was? We did many, many great things. The greatest thing is that we broke the barrier of fear. We do not huddle in our own four cubits. We go out into the expanse. We initiate, we act, we attack, we crush our enemies. And the 'Young Lion of Judah' has struck those who seek our lives with unprecedented blows.

We brought home all our hostages, down to the very last one. There were those who said: 'Get out, get out!' We did not get out. Today we control 60%, tomorrow we shall see. We distanced from ourselves, as Rabbi Shapira said a few minutes ago, an immediate existential danger of nuclear bombs and thousands of ballistic missiles, which Iran developed. And I want to tell you, this must be understood, my fellow Ministers know this: Had we not done so, Iran would have at least one atomic bomb today, and they might have been on the way to an arsenal, but it did not happen. We rose like a lion, we roared like a lion, and we do not stretch our necks out to the slaughterer. That thing has ended in the history of our people. The campaign is not yet over, but it is already clear that we have changed the history of the State of Israel. And simultaneously, as I promised we would, we have also changed the Middle East!

The People of Israel know how to fight back, because the consciousness of struggle has accompanied us for thousands of years. As was said of our forefather Jacob: 'And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.' The dawn is constantly stretching until the next dawn. We are a people that knows how to struggle. Nothing, nothing have we achieved easily. Nothing we received is self-evident. We survived the upheavals of time—thanks to the struggle. We established our state, thanks to the struggle. We maintained our independence, thanks to the struggle. We unified Jerusalem, our capital, in a miraculous defensive war 59 years ago, thanks to the struggle.

And who is greater to us than Rabbi Kook (https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abraham-isaac-kook/), may the memory of the righteous be a blessing, whose writings are saturated with faith in the success of the struggle! Rabbi Kook, among the giants of the national revival, spoke much in praise of the struggle against foreign cultures, and also against the forces of tyranny and oppression. He believed that the sublime spirit of our people, that this spirit would stand by us in every test, in every test—of renewing our days as of old in our land.

I want to share with you: Rabbi Kook’s genius in Torah is well known. The immense diligence that characterized him, added to the love of Israel, is familiar to many. But I always look for a concrete innovation. I seek inspiring ideas that have a practical relevance to the reality of our lives in the present.

And today, before I arrived here, I carefully read a fascinating article by Rabbi Kook 94 years ago. The article is called 'To Add Courage.' In this article, Rabbi Kook likens the process of building the Land of Israel to digging a deep well. To obtain water in an arid land, one must invest effort. But when you start digging in the ground, with labor, with sweat, sometimes also with blood, some of the diggers get tired and quit the work. Rabbi Kook calls them, I love this phrase, Rabbi Kook calls them: 'The weary of body and the weak of soul.' Sound familiar? They despair, but we continue. It's not over yet, because after further digging, the first stream of water bursts forth. But this water is murky, full of sludge and sand. Again, there are those who throw up their hands. They say: 'All the effort we invested, this effort was in vain. Let's go our way.' But in contrast to them, the one who does not despair, the one who clings to the path, the one who believes in the renewal and realization of the vision, is the one who will find pure and clear water in the depths of the well. The difficulties, writes Rabbi Kook, the difficulties will not weaken our hands. Even if massive obstacles stand in our way, we will not be afraid, and we will not be deterred!
My dear honored guests, this is also my way, as the Prime Minister of Israel. This is the policy that I and my colleagues here lead, to march the State of Israel forward. Our mission is to ensure, with G-d's help, the eternity of Israel!

And I want to add regarding Rabbi Kook's teachings: This is the Torah of the Land of Israel at its best. Rabbi Kook understood a fundamental thing: The Torah that was shaped in the Diaspora is important, but in its character, it addresses the individual, the community. In the Land of Israel, he understood, we need a renewal of Torah: A Torah that addresses all parts of the nation. A Torah that is required for national challenges. A Torah that is connected to Zionism, to the ingathering of the exiles, to security, to settlement, to economy, to education, to culture. A Torah that gives strength to deal with the difficulties, out of the understanding that we are in a process of redemption! Nothing less than that, a process of redemption, as the prophets prophesied. As we came here for the ingathering of exiles to redeem our people, to ensure the eternity of Israel.

This outlook is a connecting thread, one of many, between Rabbi Kook, and my grandfather, Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky-Netanyahu. There was a very close connection between them. Rabbi Kook eulogized my grandfather Nathan in a moving eulogy, and every time I read it, I am moved anew. The close connection between them was based, among other things, on understanding the magnitude of the hour, in the years between the two World Wars: Either the People of Israel will continue to wallow in the pains of the Diaspora, weak and beaten, or it will take its fate into its own hands, struggle for its liberation from the foreign yoke, and march upright on the soil of the homeland while drawing from the waters of Judaism. Generations have passed now, not just years. And reality clearly proves, who was wrong and who was right. Who was struck by despair, gave up and fled, and who added courage, found pure water and received reward for his labor.

And that is exactly what happened 59 years ago: Shortly before the Six-Day War, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, of blessed memory, cried out for the regions of our land that were not in our hands. And then a few days later came the War of Salvation, the War of Deliverance. Jerusalem once again became a city that was joined together. The nation's holy sites in Judea and Samaria returned to our hands. I just told the story at Ammunition Hill that I remember the tremor in my soul when I heard Motta Gur say 'The Temple Mount is in our hands,' but that tremor continued when we reached the Western Wall, and a massive river of people flowed there, a massive force that flowed there. And then all the districts of the Bible, in Judea and Samaria, I remember we moved from site to site. We held a Bible in hand, and the Bible was alive, because the People of Israel live and the Land of Israel is their land; we returned to our birthplaces, we returned to our places, we returned to our land. Was it an uplifting of spirit? No. It is an uplifting of spirit every time I go to the districts of our homeland in the Land of Israel, in Judea and Samaria, this is our land and it will always be our land! So 59 years ago, we removed the stranglehold of the Arab states. We broke through to the west and the east, the north and the south.

And today, the same thing: we removed the stranglehold of the Iranian axis, we crushed large parts of it, we broke out into the expanse! I know, Rabbi Shapira, that you drill this well into your students: Even if the great ideas are not realized immediately, as if by a magic wand, even then, one must not break. One must continue to dig wells. One must advance with renewed strength. In the end, the truth will prevail. This is what Rabbi Kook the father believed, and so believed Rabbi Kook the son. This is what your father believed, the unforgettable Rabbi Avrum Shapira, and this is what you believe. This is what my grandfather and father believed, and this is what I myself believe: 'Forever, forever, forever.' The road is long and we are winning on it.

Distinguished guests, friends, not long ago you marked one hundred years since the establishment of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva. It was not for nothing that it was called at its founding – 'The Central Universal Yeshiva.' There was a vision for the distances here. And indeed, one cannot imagine the world of Torah in Israel without the 'Mercaz HaRav' Yeshiva. This hall of study is full of a constant fire of wisdom and knowledge. Old and new merge in it, spirit and action, values and fulfillment. Many of my wonderful friends who serve with me in the governments of Israel, and in the Knessets of Israel, drew inspiration from this house, from this spirit, and I thank them for the great support, for our united effort together, for the way you enlist without hesitation, with the understanding that we are fighting together for something sublime. And if you think I am saying idle words, hollow words, it is not so. I want to tell you that I sit with the dear friends who are here, and also with some who are not here, and the matter us, unites us. And that is not a self-evident thing in political life, but for us, for each of us, it is indeed self-evident. Because we know what we are fighting for.

On Jerusalem Day, as a great Torah goes forth from Zion, I wish you that you shall rise higher and higher. And I, together with my wife Sara, am always with you in heart and soul. A happy holiday to you. A happy holiday to Jerusalem. A happy holiday to the People of Israel! May you be greatly blessed. Thank you very much!”