At a Lag BaOmer event at Chabad of Sutton Place in Midtown Manhattan, led by Rabbi Shmuli and Raizy Metzger, a participant shared photos of the Rebbe never shared before.

Simon Epelman, a watchmaker and member of the community, shared with Rabbi Metzger that he had been privileged to be present at the historic visit of the newly elected Prime Minister Menachem Begin when he visited the Rebbe, and that he had in fact taken several photographs.

The pictures had never been released before.

In the summer of 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin garnered major media attention when he visited the Rebbe at 770 Eastern Parkway before heading to Washington to meet President Jimmy Carter for crucial Middle East peace talks – marking the first time a sitting head of state visited the Rebbe.

The visit came at a politically charged moment, as Begin’s Likud party had just ended 29 years of Labor rule, and the Carter administration was pressuring Israel toward territorial concessions and a Palestinian framework.

Preparations at 770 were extensive, with bomb-sniffing dogs, tight security, and thousands gathered outside in 100-degree heat.

Begin arrived at around 10:00 PM to a massive crowd. The Rebbe came out personally to greet him at the entrance – an unusual honor – and the two exchanged a warm greeting before the cameras. Begin told the press he had come “to ask and receive his blessings” for the Washington talks, calling the Rebbe “a great man in Israel” whose blessings were “very important to me.”

The Rebbe blessed him “more than one hundred percent” and urged the American media: “Make sure there is no problem for the Holy Land. Make life easier for him — you can do something about the media.”

The two then met privately for over two hours. When Begin emerged after midnight, he told reporters that speaking with the Rebbe had given him “a feeling of security” ahead of his talks with Carter. As for the contents of the meeting, Begin was characteristically firm: “Every conversation with the Rabbi is completely confidential.”

After the Washington talks, Begin’s aide Yehuda Avner returned to Brooklyn to brief the Rebbe personally in a yechidus that lasted nearly four hours.

Months later, at a farbrengen in Kfar Chabad, Begin shared a glimpse of what the Rebbe had told him: “The enemy wants that we should give them parts of the Land of Israel so that they could attack us – our security is reliant on securing our right to the Land of Israel.”

It is widely reported that among the things the Rebbe urged Begin during their private meeting was not to surrender the Sinai Peninsula for any territorial concessions, as doing so would endanger Jewish lives, and that pikuach nefesh demanded holding the land.

Ultimately, under the pressure of the Camp David Accords and the weight of American diplomacy, the decision proved too difficult to resist, and in 1978, Begin signed the Camp David Accords, agreeing to return the entire Sinai to Egypt. The Rebbe was deeply pained by the decision.

The rest, unfortunately, is history.