Group of incoming members of U.S. Congress spend five days touring in Israel

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For Riggleman, who won against anti-Israel Democrat Leslie Cockburn in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District last month, this visit to the Jewish state was not his first.

“I was in Israel during the bus bombings in 1996. I was Air Force enlisted, at the age of 26,” he told JNS last month. “When I saw the strength of the Jewish people there, when I saw what they were going through, it gave me a new appreciation for some of the challenges in that area.”

Luria, who defeated Republican Scott Taylor last month, told The Washington Post that it was her first time in Israel, and that she was moved by how U.S. support enables Israelis “to live in their communities in normal, secure lives without the fear of mortars and rockets falling on their roofs repeatedly when those types of activities do break out.”