Avraham Duvdevani, Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, our academic partner, honored the Laude-Reut high school students today on the Laude-Reut premises in the Jerusalem Lion Square – Academician Nicolae Cajal Building, as part of his scheduled trip to Romania at the invitation of the SNSPA University - the Theodor Herzl Center for Israeli Studies where he was awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa title on 5th November 2019.

President Duvdevani was very impressed by the meeting with the Laude-Reut students who proudly presented their projects and attachment to the Zionist values, and also by the discussion with the Laude-Reut Cathedra of Jewish traditions and Israeli studies, among whom we count extraordinary WZO emissary teachers.

Present at the Doctor Honoris Causa ceremony, Tova Ben Nun-Cherbis, expressed gratitude and appreciation to WZO and President Duvdevani, emphasizing the spiritual connection and friendship between Romania and Israel:

In the name of the Laude-Reut Educational Center, in my position of President and Founder of this institution for excellence in education and as academic partner with the World Zionist Organization and the National School of Political and Administrative Studies, allow me to salute everyone here present at this Honoris Causa award ceremony, a moment in the history of the relationships between Romania and Israel, and to convey my deepest appreciation to each and everyone who understands and holds sacred the values of the Zionist movement and of our deep-rooted friendship.

I am deeply honored to be here now in the presence of Mr. Avraham Duvdevani, President of the World Zionist Organization, the keeper of the Zionist legacy inherited from our forefather Theodor Herzl, the great visionary who put the State of Israel on the map where it is today and not in Uganda as it was proposed at the time. In the Israeli Declaration of Independence, Theodor Herzl is officially referred to as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State", the one who believed Zionism to be an infinite ideal and hence the Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 he pursued this dream to establish the country for the Jewish people.

And yet, the most famous Zionist Congress that took place in Basel as I have already mentioned was not the first and not the last either, as almost a decade before it, in 1881, in Focsani Romania, a small town with a flourishing Jewish community at the time, but lost later after the Second World War, the Zionist ideal came to life offerring the solution to solve the Jewish question in Romania by emigrating to Israel and settting up agricultural colonies, thus creating a new, independent Jewish life. The resolutions of the Focsani Congress were implemented starting 1882 when the Jewish pioneers arrived in Israel and founded the cities of Ros Pina and Zihron Jacob, among them being 3 families from Focsani.

The Focsani Zionist Congress is also famous in the history of the Jewish people as the current Hatikva anthem of the national State of Israel was first played with the hope of reaching the promised land. History records it that the lyrics of the Israeli anthem were written also on Romanian land, in Iași in 1877, by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish Hebrew-language poet from Galicia. The theme of the romantic composition reflects the Jews' 2,000-year-old hope of returning to the Land of Israel, restoring it, and reclaiming it as a free and sovereign nation.

In the light of Herzl’s words, the World Zionist Organization continues his ideal, preserving and enriching it, through wondrous generations of Jewish people to whom President Duvdevani is an illustrious member as his origins and life experience prove it constantly.

Therefore, I am proud to witness the award of the Doctor Honoris Causa title to President Avraham Duvdevani, as a tribute to Theodor Herzl himself, here on Romanian land from where the first Zionist pioneers travelled to Israel, and I greatly appreciate the initiative of the Theodor Herzl Center for Israeli Studies in the National School of Political and Administrative Studies.

On behalf of the Laude-Reut Educational Complex I would like to express our gratitude for the amazing academic partnership through which emissary teachers are sent to spread the Zionist knowledge to the younger generations.

May the infinite Zionist ideal shine on us all with great hope for a better future, in peace, for humankind!

Thank you, President Duvdevani and the World Zionist Organization!