BICOM

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and First Lady Nechama Rivlin yesterday hosted a traditional Open Sukkah event with 6,000 invited guests at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

A sukkah is a temporary hut-like structure, which is erected for seven days (eight days outside of Israel) as part of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The sukkahs commemorate the temporary and portable dwellings which the bible states the Jewish people lived in during their 40-years in the wilderness, following their liberation from slavery in Egypt.

The President said: “This house usually welcomes heads of states, ambassadors and dignitaries, but today this house is even more fortunate to welcome those to whom it belongs and those it serves. The President’s Residence is the house of all the citizens of the State of Israel. Each of you here are guests and also hosts”.

Rivlin went on to say that he wanted to “give a special welcome to our important guests, our dear guests with disabilities, together we are all one, we are responsible for each other”.

He also reached out to members of the Jewish Diaspora, saying that “from everywhere in the Diaspora, we have lived in exile, we have brought with us a wealth of culture when we returned to our land. And so we have today a vast and extraordinary mosaic of all the tribes, and still today half of the Jewish people live in the Diaspora. This year we are hosting them in a symbolic way, here in the President’s Sukkah”.

Earlier in the day, Rivlin met with activists who are campaigning for an increase in the disability allowance to bring it in line with the minimum wage.

Rivlin said at the meeting that “the State of Israel, the Israeli Government and the Prime Minister understand completely that the social issue—with the lives of people with disabilities and their needs at its core—is at the heart and soul of the State of Israel”.