Today, Jerusalem’s role as a gathering place for kings will appear. The event commemorates the Holocaust but one rabbi sees it as a decisive moment in which the nations will choose which side they will fight for in the final battle between Good and Evil.

The Fifth World Holocaust Forum called “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism,” organized by the World Holocaust Forum Foundation in cooperation with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, will take place today, 23 January 2020 at the museum’s Warsaw Ghetto Square in Jerusalem. The event marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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The list of world leaders attending is quite impressive. At least 47 world leaders, including 26 presidents, four kings (from Spain, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg), and four prime ministers will represent their countries that include the U.S., Russia, England, Romania, Italy, Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Finland, Bosnia, Iceland, Armenia, Australia, Canada, and several others.

Yad Vashem invited every country that was under Nazi occupation, every country that was an Allied power. In a poignant gesture, Germany was also invited.

The U.S. will be represented by Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The gathering will be addressed by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, French President Emmanuel Macron, Prince of Wales HRH Prince Charles, Russian President Vladimir Putin, a senior leader from the US, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. On Wednesday, leaders will gather at Rivlin’s residence for an official dinner and discussion. Spain’s King Felipe VI will deliver an address on behalf of the world leaders.

The Foreign Ministry  called the event the third-largest gathering of international leaders in Israel’s history, after the funerals of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

The gathering certainly fulfills King David’s vision of his capital as a gathering place for leaders.

Yerushalayim built up, a city knit together,to which tribes would make pilgrimage, the tribes of Hashem, —as was enjoined upon Yisrael— to praise the name of Hashem. There the thrones of judgment stood, thrones of the house of David. Psalms 122:3-5

This vision of King David was prophesied to be revealed before the Messiah.

At that time, they shall call Yerushalayim “Throne of Hashem,” and all nations shall assemble there, in the name of Hashem, at Yerushalayim. They shall no longer follow the willfulness of their evil hearts. Jeremiah 3:17

“Whenever world leaders gather in Jerusalem, its a sign the holy city is claiming its rightful, biblical place as the seat of global leadership,” said Rabbi Tuly Weisz, publisher of Breaking Israel News. “We believe there is a heavenly Jerusalem and an earthly Jerusalem and with so many presidents and kings visiting Yad Vashem to commemorate the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the earthly Jerusalem rises up towards heavenly Jerusalem in a beautiful way.”

Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin, noted that from its pre-Abrahamic roots under King Malki-Tzedek, Jerusalem was destined to be an international forum with a higher purpose.

“Jerusalem’s nature is to make peace, to bring together, to make things one and whole,” Rabbi Weiss said, noting that the Hebrew word שלם (shalem; complete) is contained in the name of the city. “The worst lie perpetrated by the media today is portraying Jerusalem as a ‘flashpoint for violence’ or as a city divided.”

Rabbi Weiss suggested that this misconception of Jerusalem is being acted out in the upcoming event.

“There is a form of global schizophrenia when it comes to the Holocaust and Israel,” Rabbi Weiss said. “On one hand, they recognize that the Holocaust took place and it was, of course, the most horrible act by humanity in the history of the world. But while recognizing this, Europeans make a peculiar disconnect separating what happened in World War Two from their anti-Israel actions today. It is as if they believe that there is no connection between anti-Semitism and unreasonable hatred of the only Jewish state in the world.”

Rabbi Weiss illustrated this point by the conspicuous non-participation of Poland in the Jerusalem event commemorating an event that took part inside its borders. Ironically,  Poland’s President Andrzej Duda announced last week that he will not attend the event because organizers had not included him as a speaker at the forum. Most of the Nazi extermination camps, including Auschwitz, were located in Poland and the Holocaust took the lives of three million Polish Jews, half of all Jews killed. Despite these facts, Poland made it a criminal offense last year to accuse it of complicity in Nazi war crimes. The law garnered criticism from many world leaders including Prime Minister Netanyahu who  called it an “attempt to rewrite history.”. . .

(Excerpt from Breaking Israel News. Article by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz.)