OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

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Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 12, 2023
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. OSSOFF. Mr. President, thank you for the recognition this morning.

It is a pleasure to be with you, Mr. President, here this morning as we, together, represent the State of Georgia, an obligation that we both cherish, an obligation I cherish sharing with you. And it is a pleasure to be with you here, Mr. President, this morning to open the Senate, having heard such a moving prayer and such words of wisdom from Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple in Atlanta, GA.

Rabbi, on behalf of the U.S. Senate, we thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule tending to your congregation and providing light and inspiration to our constituents in Georgia to provide such wisdom and a blessing to those of us here in this Chamber who labor each day to do the work of the people and to advance the interests of the United States.

I thank you, Rabbi Berg, for your leadership at this moment of trial for Jewish Americans in Georgia, across the country, and for Jews around the world at this moment that frays the bonds between faith communities. I thank you for your interfaith leadership, for your consistent calls for solidarity, compassion, and mutual love and respect between all people of all faiths.

It is particularly fitting, Rabbi, that you joined us during Hanukkah. And, Mr. President, to have Rabbi Berg here as we approach the sixth night, during this moment when so many Jews feel such anxiety and fear amidst the overt expression of anti-Semitism such as we have not seen for a generation, we draw upon the Hanukkah story--one of endurance and resilience and survival--for inspiration, a story that can inspire all people of all faiths.

Finally, Mr. President, I would note, as you and I together represent the State of Georgia--for the first time in its history represented by a Black man and a Jew--that to have Rabbi Berg here representing The Temple's civil rights commitments in history--The Temple, which in 1958, as you know, Mr. President, was bombed by White supremacists in an attempt at vengeance for Rabbi Jacob Rothschild's alliance with civil rights leaders and Dr. King in the American South--it is particularly powerful to have Rabbi Berg here with us this morning.

He leads, of course, the congregation where I was bar mitzvahed. We are grateful for Rabbi Berg's spiritual leadership.

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