Judah Samet

Judah Samet (; February 5, 1938 – September 27, 2022) was a Hungarian-American businessman, speaker, and Holocaust survivor. At the age of six, he and his family were taken from Debrecen, Hungary, to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they spent eleven months. After the Second World War the family immigrated to Israel, where he subsequently served in the Israel Defense Forces and worked as a teacher. He later moved to Canada and then to the United States. In 2018, he was a witness to and survivor of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. He was a jeweler and speaker in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Early life Judah Samet was born in Debrecen, Hungary on February 5, 1938, to an Orthodox Jewish family. His parents owned and managed two knitting factories and had four children: two sons, Moshe and Yakove, both older than Judah, and the youngest, a daughter, Henyah. Samet's father had received tickets and passports to emigrate to the United States but the family was not able to leave in time. A German soldier contemplated killing Samet's mother because she asked for more supplies, but his superior officer decided to keep her as an interpreter for the Gestapo. or off a bridge. Samet's father Yekutil died a week later from typhoid fever. His brother Jacob died in the Suez Crisis as a machine gunner for the IDF. Samet moved to Pittsburgh in 1962. Samet also worked as a teacher. He said that he was "energized" by the positive reception of his speeches.

Left to right: Second Lady of the U.S. Karen Pence, First Lady of the U.S. Melania Trump, Samet, and Pittsburgh police Officer Timothy Matson, at a listening session prior to the 2019 State of the Union Address U.S. President Donald Trump invited Samet to be one of his personal guests at the 2019 State of the Union Address, which Trump gave on February 5, 2019. Samet visited the White House and met President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, First Daughter Ivanka Trump, and Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner. Samet smiled, blew a kiss, waved down to Trump, stood up, bowed his head, and shouted "thank you". Trump jokingly conducted with his hands and said, "They wouldn't do that for me". He was not wearing his kippah at the Address because a government employee had told him "nobody wears a hat here" upon entering the House Chamber. Samet later said that he admired Trump and called him a "working man". He was, however, not politically active, as opposed to his Democratic family members.

Personal life and death Samet died from complications of stomach cancer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 27, 2022, at the age of 84.