Reuven Rivlin, Speaker of the House for Israel‘s Knesset, is a Jersualemite with ties that go back generations. His ancestor, Rabbi Hillel Rivlin, a relative of the great Vilna Gaon, came to Ottoman Palestine 73 years before the first glimmerings of political Zionism. Rabbi Hillel came because the Gaon instructed his students and family to do so, in preparation for the arrival of the Messiah.

Thirty years later, Rivlin‘s mother‘s family, followers of Chabad chassidut, arrived, impelled by the wishes of the founder of chassidut, Rabbi Israel Ba‘al Shem Tov, who also foresaw the beginning of the Messianic era.