Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee visited the grave of the late Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson in New York on Sunday, just days before the confirmation hearings for his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
Hucakbee, a staunch supporter of Israel, visited the site in Queens together with his wife, Janet. The Huckabees were escorted by Dr. Joseph Frager and his wife Karen, and Rabbi David Katz of the New York-based Israel Heritage Foundation, who also hosted the Huckabees for a reception after the visit.
U.S. Senate hearings on Huckabee’s nomination for U.S. envoy to Israel are scheduled to take place on Tuesday on Capitol Hill.
The 69-year-old conservative evangelical pastor, TV host and two-time Republican presidential candidate has visited the Holy Land scores of times and led thousands of participants on solidarity tours over the past half-century since his first trip to Israel right out of high school, just before the 1973 Yom Kippur war.
A long-time champion of Israel’s cause, he has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s rights to the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and has worked to fight the BDS movement.
The grave of the late Lubavitcher Rabbi has become a popular spiritual and political pilgrimage site.
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump visited the site during the last month of his presidential campaign on the one-year anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel.
Argentinian President Javier Milei, who studied with a rabbi who he later appointed as his ambassador to Israel, has also visited the site several times since his election.
