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NOVEMBER 5,2015 2020| |The TheJewish JewishHome Home OCTOBER 29,
A MBASSA DOR DAVID M. FRIEDMAN Pursuer of Peace BY TAMMY MARK
U
nited States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has spent the last four years as a facilitator of peace in the Middle East and agent of change for Israel relations in the Trump Administration. Originally from North Woodmere, New York, Friedman’s father was Rabbi Morris S. Friedman, z”l, a rabbi at Temple Hillel and a head of the New York Board of Rabbis. Ambassador Friedman graduated from the Hebrew Institute of Long Island before earning his B.A. from Columbia University and his J.D. from New York University School of Law. The ambassador and wife, Tammy Sand Friedman, have five children and eight grandchildren, and resided in Woodmere before Friedman assumed his current post. Though Ambassador Friedman operates on the global stage, he holds his community and personal values dear.
Ambassador Friedman is an observant Jew, known to have a deep love for all of the land and people of Israel. A former bankruptcy lawyer, Friedman initially met President Donald Trump in 1994 when he represented him as the then-chairman and president of The Trump Organization. The ambassador fondly shares the story of how he and President Trump became
friends when Trump paid a condolence call as Friedman sat shiva for his father. Trump had travelled 3½ hours through a blizzard to pay his respects; the two men spent several hours talking long into the night, and their friendship proliferated from there. Their personal conversations on Israel began when Friedman purchased a second home in Jerusalem.
Fast forward to 2016, Friedman was chosen to serve as an advisor to President Trump during his presidential campaign and tasked with advising on Israel-related and Jewish issues. Friedman co-chaired Trump’s Israel Advisory Committee alongside Jason Greenblatt, a former executive for The Trump Organization; the pair promoted Trump’s campaign promise
to move the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In December of 2016, President-elect Trump’s transition team announced that Friedman had been nominated as the United States Ambassador to Israel. Friedman was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on March 29, 2017. Friedman formally presented his credentials to Israeli Presi-