US President Joe Biden, who arrived in Israel on Wednesday afternoon, visited the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in the early evening hours. The visit was among one of the few ironclad commitments on the president's itinerary during his two-day visit to Israel and was slated as the first presidential stop following a special inspection of Israeli air defense systems, which Biden was granted soon after his arrival.
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At Yad Vashem, Biden, alongside US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who traveled to Israel with him, participated in a memorial ceremony. President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel Meir Lau accompanied them during the ceremony and the visit to the Hall of Remembrance.
At the beginning of the memorial ceremony, the Ankor Children's Choir will sing "Walk to Caesarea" written by Hannah Szenes. The president rekindled the Eternal Flame and lay a wreath on a slab under which the ashes of Holocaust victims from Nazi death camps are buried. Cantor Shmuel Berlad recited El Maleh Rachamim, the Jewish prayer for the souls of the departed.
While in the Hall of Remembrance, Biden conversed with two Holocaust survivors: Rena Quint and Giselle (Gita) Cycowicz. He concluded the event by signing the Yad Vashem guestbook.
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