A Holocaust survivor who also survived the October Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh will be among President Trump’s guests at the State of the Union.
Judah Samet, 81, was among those that were supposed to be sent to Auschwitz in 1944, but damaged railway lines prompted Samet and his family to be sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp instead, where he spent 10 months before the camp was liberated.
On Oct. 27, Samet was four minutes late to Shabbat morning services at the Tree of Life synagogue because he was conversing with his housekeeper; when Samet arrived in the parking lot, a man informed him that a shooting was occurring.
Samet remained in his car until the shooting ended.
“I was very lucky,” Samet told USA Today. “Four minutes saved my life.”
Samet will be one of the White House’s 13 guests at the Feb. 5 State of the Union address, which includes SWAT team officer Thomas Matson, 41, who was shot multiple times at the Tree of Life shooting.
Samet told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that he will “say a Jewish blessing that you say only when you meet a head of state” when he meets with Trump at noon.
“I like him very much,” Samet said. “He is strongly pro-Israel. That a man would go outright for Israel and declare for Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel … that was something new.”
The State of the Union will begin at 6 p.m. PT.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.