“This message is for the generations to come…This is priceless”
— Israeli President Reuven Rivlin
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin toured the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles with Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Center’s Founder and Dean. The visit comes in thesame week the FBI reports that anti-Semitic crimes are on the rise.
Rivlin viewed the Museum’s “Hitler Letter”, (pictured above) an original letter written and signed by Adolph Hitler in 1919. In the same week that FBI reported that hatecrimes against Jews were on the rise, the letter’s words—the earliest written evidence of Hitler’s plans for the destruction of the Jewish people—tragically still live on.“This message is for the generations to come…This is priceless,” he said just before greeting a group of teenage students, (pictured below), one of the many whotraveled from Sylmar and San Diego, California that day. When Rivlin paused in the installation, "In Our Time", an exhibit dealing with contemporary crimes against humanity in Darfur, Iran and North Korea, he said, “When we say 'neveragain', we know how to defend ourselves but when I say ‘never again’ we hope other nations who did not experience what we experienced will understand 'never again' and stand up tosuch tyrants.”
Rabbi Hier briefed President Rivlin on the progress of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, scheduled to open in 2019. “We will deal with important issues of the day and the valuesthat sustained the Jewish people for 2,000 years in exile as well as issues around human dignity,” he told the President.
