Preparing to be Confirmed: Huckabee Visits Ohel and Speaks in NYC

By Chabad.org and COLlive

As he prepares to be confirmed as the next United States ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee visited the Ohel, the resting place of the Rebbe, in Queens, N.Y., on Sunday, March 23.

A long-time friend of the Jewish people, Huckabee and his wife, Janet, prayed at the holy site, which is visited by approximately 1 million people every year. Located at the Old Montefiore Cemetery, the Ohel is open 24/7 and has long been a place for reflection for private citizens and world leaders alike, Jews and non-Jews, each coming to the holy site to pray, seek inspiration and find solace. Millions more people from all over the world send their written prayers and supplications to the Ohel via email and post.

The Huckabees later attended a reception in their honor hosted by the Israel Heritage Foundation. They were escorted to the Ohel by Rabbi Dr. Joseph Frager, executive vice president of the Israel Heritage Foundation, with his wife Karen, and Rabbi Dovid Katz, its executive director, along with his wife Chaya.

After praying inside the Ohel, Huckabee visited the resting places of the Rebbe’s wife, Rebbetzin Chaya M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, and that of the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson, of righteous memory.

While at the Ohel, Rabbi Dovid and Chaya Katz informed Huckabee that the day of his visit coincided with the Yartzeit of Ari Halberstam HYD, and told him about Ari’s murder in a terror attack in 1994 on the Brooklyn Bridge. The group stopped to pray in his merit as well.

Speaking at the Israel Heritage Foundation event at the UN Plaza Grill Restaurant about his upcoming role, Huckabee underlined his deep belief in the integrity of the Land of Israel, which G‑d gave to the Jewish people. “I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank,’” he said. “There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is occupied by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.”

Rabbi Shea Hecht of the NCFJE was in attendance at the event, relaying the support of the Jewish community in Huckabee’s appointment and the confidence that he will be a great ambassador to the state of Israel.

“Huckabee said that he was moved by the visit to the Ohel, and said that he wrote to the Rebbe that he would take care of the Jewish people in his role as ambassador,” Shea Hecht told COLlive.

Huckabee was nominated on Nov. 12 of last year by President Donald Trump to serve as his ambassador to Israel. His hearings, to move his nomination from committee to a full Senate vote, are scheduled to begin this week.

“After visiting the Ohel, I’m even more confident it will all work out,” Huckabee said.

“I was as surprised as anybody when I got the call and the President asked me to do it … ,” Huckabee told Arutz Sheva in an interview after being nominated. “Despite being taken a little off guard by it, there was never a doubt in my mind that if he asked me to do it, it’s a way to serve my country and a way to serve my president, but it’s also a way for me to be able to serve [the relationship between the United States and Israel] that to me is incredibly important … That’s why there is a great level of not only excitement but a deeply emotional reaction that I have had to this, because I see it as a calling.”

Huckabee has enjoyed a two-decade long relationship with Rabbi Pinchus and Esther Hadassah Ciment, directors of Chabad-Lubavitch in his home state of Arkansas. In 1996 Huckabee became the state’s first governor to join Chabad’s public Chanukah menorah lighting in Little Rock. He did so again late last year, when he substituted for his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders—the current governor of Arkansa—in lighting the menorah with Chabad of Arkansas on the first night of Chanukah.