This speech by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee at Yeshiva University's 2026 Commencement Ceremony explores how Jewish identity is shaped by divine purpose, historical memory, and moral responsibility. Huckabee shares a personal story about his 11-year-old daughter's visit to Yad Vashem, where she wrote 'Why didn't somebody do something?' in the guest book, illustrating how witnessing historical injustice can instill a lifelong commitment to moral action. He connects this to the biblical story of Joseph, explaining how God can transform adversity into purpose, and challenges graduates to embrace their identity, stand for justice, and become 'the somebody who does the something' when facing injustice.
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Mike Huckabee’s Question Left An Entire Graduation Hall SilentAñadido:
And unfortunately, there are people who hate you for that.
But I've determined that they really more than they hate you, they hate the God who chose you 3,800 years ago as his people and gave you a place called Israel and gave you a purpose, which was to present the law and the light to all the world. Every father wants his children to understand the extraordinary challenges the Jewish people have experienced.
Many of you in this graduating class, you are the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.
The fact that your grandparents actually survived the Holocaust is the reason you're here.
And you owe them something.
Everyone wants, I believe, to make sure that no one, no generation ever forgets what happened during the Holocaust.
A young father took his daughter to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
He wanted her to understand what the Holocaust was all about and why it can never be forgotten.
She was 11 years old. He was concerned that maybe she was too young to grasp it.
But he knew he had to give her some understanding of why it mattered.
So, he took her through Yad Vashem.
And she witnessed, even as an 11-year-old young lady, the horrific scenes of what happened to people for no reason other than that they were Jewish.
As she looked at the pictures and saw the things that happened, the yellow stars that were placed on children younger than her, the father could tell that it was impacting her.
As they came to the end of Yad Vashem, the guest book that is at the exit is there for people who have visited to sign and to leave any comments they had.
The father watched as his daughter went up to the guest book, took a pen from the father's pocket, and she wrote her name and her address, and then her in her child-like scrawl, where it asked for comments, that 11-year-old girl wrote these words.
Why didn't somebody do something?
That's all she wrote.
Why didn't somebody do something?
It was inconceivable even to a child how people could see the brutality, the heinous hate toward people, and to do nothing to stop it.
And so, even as a child, she left with the question, "Why didn't somebody do something?"
That little girl was my little girl.
I was the father, and I took her there when she was 11 years old.
It had an impact upon her.
Today, she serves in a job another guy once had, me.
She's the governor of Arkansas now, the first woman ever to serve the state as governor. And people ask me, "Are you proud that she's governor?" Well, of course I am, but I tell you what I'm more proud of than that.
I'm proud that that 11-year-old girl never forgot her responsibility to stand for what's right, and to recognize that she must be the somebody to do the something.
And you will not find a stronger Zionist in America than that little girl who now is the governor and whose three children I had the privilege of taking through Yad Vashem in December last year and taking them through that same journey.
You be the somebody.
Do the something and never ever ever be afraid to be who you are. Live with a great sense of duty to God and duty to his law and duty to every single person who lived in order for you to be here today. I now live in a land that I first visited right out of high school in 1973, 53 years ago.
It's a land that I between then and now had visited over a hundred times before I became ambassador.
I want you to know I'm not a Zionist because I'm Jewish.
I'm a Zionist and an unapologetic one because I believe the Bible and because I recognize that Jews around the world representing only 0.2% of the world's population have created outsized impact on the world.
And unfortunately, there are people who hate you for that.
But I've determined that they really more than they hate you they hate the God who chose you 3800 years ago as his people and gave you a place called Israel and gave you a purpose which was to present the law and the light to all the world.
You being faithful to that task is not simply something that you should do.
It is something that you must do.
For there's no one else to whom the creator of the universe has given such a mission.
I recognize that what has happened in the modern state of Israel is nothing short of stunning.
I've witnessed it with my own eyes.
I've watched what the prophet said would happen come to fruition, that the dry bones would live again, and that the desert would bloom.
All the way back in the book of Genesis, the Bible tells us the story of Joseph.
We all know the extraordinary path of his life, anything but easy. Falsely accused, sold by his brothers into slavery, left for dead, stuck in an Egyptian prison where he would have rotted had he not been able to interpret a dream, finally rising to the place second in command of all of the nation of Egypt, and then when there was famine in the land of Israel, his brothers, not knowing his their brother Joseph was still alive, came begging for assistance for the famine.
They at first did not recognize him, but he recognized them.
When they realized that this was Joseph, their brother, who they had left for dead, they were afraid that he would have them all killed.
Joseph said something to them that I hope you never forget.
He said to them, "What you intended for harm, God has used for good."
It was not that God authored the harm that came to Joseph.
It was not that he was the creator of the calamities in his life, but you serve a God that is so great, so mighty, so overwhelming that even when the worst things are intended to destroy you, God has the ability to use them for changing the world.
It was Joseph being in Egypt that led to the saving of his people from famine.
Throughout history, many attempts have been made to eradicate, to annihilate the Jewish people, and more recently the state of Israel.
I hope that there is never a moment in your life where you for 1 second apologize for being who you are and where you've come from, but more importantly for where God wants to take you for you to lead this world, for you to lead and do great things in spite of those who would stop you if they could.
Never forget your past. It's part of who you are, but don't live there.
Every time you're in a vehicle, there are two pieces of glass that are very important when you drive.
Some of you pay attention to neither one of them.
You just look at your phone and endanger all of us.
But there are two pieces of glass in that vehicle that you should always take note of. One is the windshield.
It's where you look where you're going.
At whatever speed you're traveling, the windshield is the most important piece of glass in the car.
Because without it, you would have no idea how to drive safely between the lines.
Of course, if you drive in New York, you know that those lines mean absolutely nothing.
They are mere suggestions.
But there's another piece of glass in the automobile. It's the little piece of glass on the windshield called the rearview mirror.
It lets you look at where you've been.
But I would suggest to you that the proportion of size of the windshield compared to the proportion of size of the rearview mirror is instructive.
You should certainly glance back at where you have been, but your focus is not on where you were.
Your focus must always be on where you're going.
Yeshiva University has prepared you for just such a life.
There will always be those who will find reasons, irrational reasons, to hate the Jews.
It's been that way since God chose Abraham on Mount Moriah and made him the father of a great nation.
You have a history of 3,800 years of unbroken connection to a land that many of us love, not because it is a part of a land God gave to us.
But I say to my Jewish friends often, "You can be Jewish and you don't have to have anything whatsoever to do with people like me who are Christian.
But I cannot be the person of my faith if it were not for those of you upon whose foundation my faith is built."
And I come today to say not only thank you, but to say that there is an obligation, a moral, eternal, spiritual obligation that I have for those of you who are Jewish and whose protection of and stewardship of the law, stewardship of the Torah, has given me a faith upon which I stand.
And I say, "Thank you.
Thank you.
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