Dear Friends,
My current term in the Israeli Knesset is coming to an end, and I would like to thank God and you all for the great privilege that I had in carrying out this special and significant mission.
I am constantly in awe of the fact that the People of Israel returned to their land and have been able to establish a prosperous state within a mere 70 years.
As someone who devoted most of his life to serving as a civil servant of the Jewish people, I see my tenure in the Knesset as just one more station – albeit a very significant one – in the chain of roles in which I have been fortunate to carry out, with God’s help.
I invested my time and energy in the Knesset in order to advance the important values and issues that I believe in; family values, empowering the weaker sides of society, public health and the fight against smoking, our connection to and sovereignty over the Land of Israel in all its parts in general and Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in particular, the fusion of the divisions within the Jewish people and encouraging dialogue and mutual tolerance between the different groups within Israeli society.
I will summarize these efforts at the end of this letter, but first I would like to present my plans for the future.
Shalom Jerusalem – Zionism: The Next Generation
As a direct continuation of my work in the Knesset, I intend to establish the Jerusalem Peace Movement as a worldwide movement whose goal is to develop and strengthen the connection between the return to Zion process that Israel has experienced in recent decades and the entire world.
I firmly believe that the Zionist process is not one that is for the sole benefit of the people of Israel. We have been charged with the duty of serving as a ‘light unto the nations’, and thereby bringing to the world the blessing of God to forefather Abraham and implementing next stage of the Zionist process.
I intend to bolster my current efforts in speaking to groups of visitors here in Israel and in traveling abroad – in order to emphasize to the millions of believers in the Bible the deep meaning of the fact that we have been blessed to witness with our own eyes the fulfillment of the visions of the prophets.
I intend to encourage all our friends from around the world to help us take Zionism to its next level. To do our part to fulfill the other prophecies, including:
“For my house is a house of prayer for all nations”
“Many peoples will say ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and we will walk in His paths’… for the Torah will go forth from Zion, and the word of God from Jerusalem.”
We must work with these friends to strengthen the ties between the nations, the Jewish people, the Bible, Jerusalem and the Temple Mount – as the source of God’s blessings in the world.
If we succeed in fulfilling our mission to be a light unto the nations and to connect them to the light of the people of Israel, the Land of Israel and the Torah of Israel – all connected to and emanating from Jerusalem and the Temple Mount – then we will succeed in reaching Shalom Jerusalem.
Let’s work together towards this goal of biblical importance and proportions!
In order to do so, please:
- Keep in touch and donate to this spiritual journey through my website:
http://shalomjerusalem.org/ - I’d love to meet with your group during your next visit to Jerusalem, or to come to visit your community. Please book a meeting for your group or an event with me via the booking page on the website, or by writing to email:
ceo@shalomjerusalem.org
With blessings and prayers for the Shalom of Jerusalem,
Member of Knesset Yehudah Glick
Summary of Activity in the 20th Knesset
The Temple Mount
The number of Jews who ascend to the Temple Mount has increased over the past decade from 5,000 a year, to close to 40,000 a year. This is a true revolution – the renewal of the Jewish connection and Israeli sovereignty over the holiest place for the Jewish people.
Before I became a Member of Knesset, I led the struggle to outlaw the Islamic Movement and expelling the violent and inciting elements from the Temple Mount. When I entered the Knesset, I founded the first Knesset Caucus for strengthening the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.
Parliamentary activity
- Dealt intensively with Israel’s foreign relations through hundreds of meetings with political and religious leaders from abroad, conversations with groups from abroad, and visits to numerous Jewish and Christian communities abroad.
- Established and participated in leading Knesset Caucuses that implement my values for the application of Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and to strengthen the Jewish connection to Israeli nationalism, including:
- Caucus for strengthening the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount
- Caucus to encourage Bible Study
- The Land of Israel Caucus
- Knesset Christian Allies Caucus
- Caucus for the Nation, Religion and State
- Caucus for Sabbath in Israel by Consensus
- Passed a law requiring every nursery and school to store an Epipen syringe in their first-aid kit, in order to save the life of a child suffering from an extreme allergic reaction.
- Assisted divorced fathers in order to reduce the high percentage of suicides that afflict this part of society.
- Initiated, for the first time in Israel, the drafting the rules and regulations pertaining to the official status of orphans in Israel.
- Served as Co-Chair of the Caucus for those dealing with mental and emotional illnesses and led the demand for increased treatment and awareness for them.
- Secured the allocation of NIS 2 million for the State to give incentives to young couples to participate in couples-counseling in the first year of their marriage, in order to provide them with the tools for a successful relationship, that will in turn reduce the divorce rate (implementing similar programs in the United States).
- Founded and held “Doing Good” events in the Knesset, in which Members of Knesset showed appreciation to non-profit organizations and citizens who invest their time in charity-work and giving of themselves to their community. I established and served as Chair of the Caucus for the Encouragement of Social-Community Initiatives (the largest caucus in the 20th Knesset).
Anti-smoking efforts
- Passed a law banning advertising cigarettes on the Internet and barring their being marketed prominently in stores – in order to distance teenagers from cigarette advertising by negating the deliberate targeted marketing that tobacco companies use in order to portray to teens that cigarettes are a ‘cool’ product to use.
- Secured the allocation of NIS 15 million per year from the Ministry of Finance for smoking prevention activities and smoking cessation programs.
- Forced the reluctant Finance Minister to raise the tax on rolling-tobacco so that it is comparable to the current tax levied on cigarettes, in order to make it difficult for young people to indulge in this product, which was selling at half the price of cigarettes. My efforts on this included a 25-day hunger strike.
- Submitted a bill to ban smoking in condominiums, where such smoking bothers a neighbor, turning said neighbor one into a prisoner in his/her own home, choking on the smoke of her/his neighbor.
- Submitted the Tobacco 21 bill, geared to raise the legal age of smoking to the age of 21, as is customary in many countries around the world. The idea is to negate the ability of teenagers to buy cigarettes by relying on looking older than their age or on an 18-year-old friend who will buy them for them. It has been proven that 21-year-olds do not agree to buy cigarettes for teenagers, while 18-year-olds do.
- Petitioned the Attorney General to file criminal charges against the tobacco companies for consciously marketing a lethal product. (Similar charges are currently being considered in other countries.)
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