President Barack Obama on Tuesday extended a Rosh Hashanah greeting to Jews in the United States and the rest of the world in a recorded YouTube message.

Watch the President’s Rosh Hashanah greeting:

This year’s video, as opposed to previous years, had a much more modest message which resembled his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he said reaching peace is “hard work.”

“My Administration is doing everything we can to promote prosperity here at home and security and peace throughout the world – and that includes reaffirming our commitment to the State of Israel,” Obama said. “As Jewish tradition teaches us, we may not complete the work, but that must never keep us from trying.”

Obama also continued to stress the U.S. commitment to Israel.

“While we cannot know all that the New Year will bring, we do know this: the United States will continue to stand with Israel, because the bond between our two nations is unshakable,” he said.

In his Rosh Hashanah message in 2010, Obama urged Israelis and Palestinians to seize the opportunity for peace.

“At a time when Israelis and Palestinians have returned to direct dialogue, it is up to us to encourage and support those who are willing to move beyond their differences and work towards security and peace in the Holy Land,” Obama said.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT