The following is former Vice President Walter Mondale’s Rosh Hashanah message:
I am pleased to send New Year’s greetings to the members of the American Jewish community as you prepare to celebrate the High Holy Days. I know that your prayers will be for peace for your fellow Americans, for the embattled people of Israel and for all the world.
We live on a planet where we must be strong enough to deter war, using our strength to keep the peace and ensure that nuclear weapons are never fired. Peace, the most important gift of all, will surely be in all your prayers as it is in mine.
During this time of remembrance, many will reflect on the blessing of liberty that our country enjoys. How precious are the basic freedoms of speech, press, of assembly and — most fundamental of all — freedom of religion. How rare in this world — and how vigilant must we be to protect these freedoms from those who would abridge them or tamper with them.
On the Day of Atonement you will read the injunction of the Prophet Isaiah to feed the hungary and clothe the naked. Jews have ever harkened to the cry of the poor, the weak, the old, the strangers at the gate. That, too, is part of the heritage you will honor in your homes and synagogues during the Days of Awe that are approaching. I join you in your prayers — for America, for the House of Israel and for all of us. Leshana Tova.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
