Israeli President Herzog urges unity and resilience at Holocaust Remembrance Day event

Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed the State Opening Ceremony of Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2026 at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center on Monday evening.

His opening remarks acknowledged that this year’s events are different, coming amid a war, and encouraged the people of Israel to stand strong despite the hardships they face.

“This is a prolonged campaign,” he said. “But I am confident that we will emerge from it strengthened and empowered.”

The president then told the story of IDF Master Sergeant Asaf Cafri, a reservist soldier in the IDF Armored Corps, who fell in battle on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2025. His great-grandmother, Magda Baratz, was a Holocaust Survivor who learned of Asaf’s death in battle while attending an event to commemorate the liberation of Bergen-Belsen.

Herzog quoted Magda, who often said, “This is my victory: to survive, to immigrate to the Land of Israel, and to establish a dynasty.”

Indeed, Magda had many other descendants whom she was determined to help build a life and a future in the Land of Israel. Herzog presented Magda and her family as an example for all Israelis to take inspiration from.

Herzog continued by saying, “I looked at her and her family, four generations in one home – and thought to myself: God in Heaven, is there another people that can bear such a story of pain and heroism? Two weeks later, Magda Baratz passed away. The heart of the woman who had conquered everything, who had survived the concentration and extermination camps, who had withstood starvation, torture, and cold, who knew how to cling to life in the most difficult moments, who returned from destruction to life, and who built a life, could not endure the pain of the loss of Asaf, her eldest great-grandson.”

He went on to describe how the horrors of the Holocaust were experienced by Jews across Europe and North Africa, irrespective of political views, skin color or other distinctions. In the same way, he said, Jews of all backgrounds and affiliations are part of one family—an idea that lies at the core of Jewish identity.

Herzog credited this shared identity with sustaining the Jewish people through thousands of years of exile and persecution, and with giving Israelis the strength to build, remain in and defend their home in the Land of Israel, even in the face of ongoing conflict.

“In every place and every site I visit, I see Israeli society and the spirit that animates it,” he said. “Across the length and breadth of the land, in bomb shelters, at sites destroyed by missile attacks, in hospitals, in command centers, and volunteer hubs, I see the solidarity, the heroism, the devotion, and the mutual responsibility. This is the spirit that emerges within us when we fight together for our only national home, for our beloved country. It is the spirit of a people that chooses life and rises, roars, and prevails like a lion.”

He then appealed for continued unity in the current crisis, noting that the war is not yet over and that there is no time or bandwidth for the kind of internal discord Israelis have too often witnessed among the political class.

Herzog also thanked the soldiers and civilian first responders who have defended the country’s borders and airspace and cared for those affected by weapons that penetrated its defenses and struck civilian areas.

Addressing the rising tide of anti-Semitism worldwide, he said, “As President of the State of Israel, I wish to remind us: Israel and the Diaspora are one family, with one shared destiny. And when a Jew is harmed, anywhere on the face of the earth, our collective heart skips a beat.”

He concluded, “There will come a time, as is the way of the world, when not a single living Holocaust survivor remains on the face of the earth. One thing must be clear: we will remember forever, and we will pass on the memory of the Holocaust forever. On behalf of the State of Israel, I vow that we will continue to remember and to remind, to tell your story. We will be faithful to the mandate you have bequeathed to us—the mandate to act for the eternity of Israel.”