President Isaac Herzog will award US President Joe Biden with the Presidential Medal of Honor during his visit to Jerusalem next week, the President’s Residence announced on Thursday.
The award will be given to Biden in recognition of his friendship with Israel and contributions to the US-Israel relationship, as well as his fight against anti-Israel hatred and antisemitism.
The Presidential Medal of Honor is awarded to individuals who have made an extraordinary contribution to Israel or to humanity through their talents, their service, or in any other way.
Former president Shimon Peres instituted the award in 2012, and it was awarded to 26 individuals on the recommendation of a committee led at the time by the late retired Supreme Court President, Justice Meir Shamgar. That committee was disbanded by former president Reuven Rivlin, and Herzog reinstated it under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court Justice Prof. Yoram Danziger.
The committee said that Biden “is a true friend of the State of Israel and the Jewish People.
The United States of America is Israel’s closest ally, a fact to which the president of the United States gives expression in word and deed. Since the start of President Biden’s rich career in public service in the 1970s, he has established himself as a person who loves Israel and is a true friend of the whole Jewish People.
“The president gives expression in word and deed to the importance of the alliance between Israel and the United States, to his commitment to deepening the cooperation between them, to his support for Israel’s security, and to his commitment to firmly confront antisemitism.”
“The President gives expression in word and deed to the importance of the alliance between Israel and the United States”
Medal of Honor committee
Former recipients of the Presidential Medal of Honor include former US president Barack Obama, former German chancellor Angela Merkel, former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and more.