The Israeli president visited New York Monday, meeting Mayor Bill de Blasio, holding an event in the Bronx and speaking before the United Nations. NY1's Josh Robin filed the following report.

The Israeli presidency is a largely ceremonial post. Still, Reuven Rivlin's presence carries a prized symbolism.

Rivlin and Mayor Bill de Blasio met in a Midtown hotel. Hours earlier, two Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack. The militant Iranian-backed group Hezbollah claimed responsibility.

A United Nations peacekeeper was killed in the skirmish. It's unclear by which side.

The violence was part of the brief conversation.

"We feel the loss of those soliders, too, and I offer my condolences to the whole nation, as well as to the families," de Blasio said.

The pair also discussed this month's attacks in Paris. In addition to the deadly raid on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, terrorists killed hostages at a kosher supermarket. De Blasio visited Paris on January 20.

"I just want to let you know how much we as a city feel a sense of solidarity with Israel and with the broader Jewish community," the mayor said.

"We appreciate very much what you are doing for your community, and of course, for those Israelis and Jews who are living in New York," Rivlin said.

The Israeli president also addressed the United Nations. It was commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and death camps Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"There has been no atrocity in the history of the human race to compare in viciousness, in its scope and magnitude, with the Holocaust of the Jewish people," Rivlin said through an interpreter. "However, the slaughter of nations and communities was not born in Nazi Germany, and did not cease with the opening of the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek and Buchenwald."

Rivlin and also discussed Jewish and Latino relations in the Bronx with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who just returned from Israel.

"A historic day," Diaz said. "I don't think that we've ever seen the president of Israel visit the beautiful borough of the Bronx."

Rivlin later visited the September 11th memorial.

The Israeli president was then to return to Israel. He said he was going to attend the funerals of the two solidiers.