Incoming PM Lapid visits Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, vows Israel will always defend itself

Incoming prime minister Yair Lapid visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem shortly after the Knesset dispersal vote passes.

He says that he visited the memorial to honor his father, who survived the Holocaust.

“Immediately after the vote, I went to Yad Vashem. There I promised my late father that I will always keep Israel strong and capable of defending itself and protecting its children,” Lapid says in a statement.

Lapid’s father, Tommy, was born in Serbia but the family was captured by the Nazis and later sent to the Budapest Ghetto.

Tommy’s father was killed in a concentration camp, while Tommy and his mother were saved by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who famously rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis.

Tommy Lapid eventually moved to Israel where he became a noted journalist, playwright and government minister.