BUCHAREST — Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister Yariv Levin called on Romania to move its embassy to Jerusalem on Wednesday, telling a joint session of the Chamber of Deputies and Senate that “the Romanian flag deserves to be raised in the city of the great kings David and Solomon.”
Levin thanked Romania’s Parliament for condemning Hamas after October 7 and said Israel is fighting to defend democratic values, women’s rights, and freedom. Not all seats were filled; quiet conversation ran through the chamber as speakers took the podium. Among those present were a group of schoolchildren, seated in the gallery.
Levin’s message to Europe’s leaders was blunt: “Follow the Romanian way. Be Romanian.”
Levin has blocked Supreme Court appointments and moved to remove Israel’s attorney-general as part of a judicial overhaul that critics say undermines democratic checks on government power.
MP Silviu Vexler, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania and co-sponsor of the Solidarity Day legislation alongside a representative of Romania’s German minority, addressed Levin by name and invoked his late father, Prof. Aryeh Levin, an Israel Prize-winning linguist, saying he had taught that you cannot speak before you understand and cannot understand before you listen.
Romanian Chamber Speaker calls Israel closest ally in region
Before the plenary, Chamber Speaker Sorin Grindeanu had welcomed Levin in a smaller meeting with deputies. Grindeanu, who led a parliamentary visit to Israel in February, told the delegation Romania considers Israel its closest ally in the region. “Our friendship and our cooperation are, from my point of view, stronger than ever,” he said.
Senate President Mircea Abrudean opened the formal session with a warning about antisemitism spreading across Europe. “Democracy must never capitulate in the face of extremism,” he said.
Levin put a number on the bilateral relationship: Direct flights he helped establish in 2019, during his time as tourism minister, drove Romanian visitors to Israel past 120,000 a year. Israel is now Romania’s third-largest tourism source.
The warm reception came amid political turbulence in Bucharest. Romania has been without a functioning government since May 5, when a no-confidence vote toppled Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, leaving the country in caretaker status with no clear successor yet named.
The exhibition Her Pain, Her Power: Voices of October 7th, dedicated to Israeli women affected by the Hamas attack, opened after the session in Parliament. Schoolchildren who had attended the plenary were among the first to walk through it.