New York City – New York and Washington are dancing the ‘Hora.’ Thousands of people celebrated Israel’s 60 years of independence on Capitol Hill and Fifth Avenue on Sunday. Many participants showed their solidartiy by carrying the Israeli flag.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The celebrators enjoyed live Israeli music, Hora dancing and Israeli cuisine. Other attractions aimed at making the crowd feel as if they were in the Holy Land was an archeological mockup and a whiff of the Dead Sea experience.
While the Jewish Federation and Israeli Embassy were leading the Washington celebrations, thousands marched the streets of New York City in the annual Salute to Israel Parade, which also marked Israel’s 60th anniversary.
Among the marchers crossing Fifth Avenue were Vice Premier Haim Ramon, Minister Ruhama Avraham and deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson and New Jersey Governor John Corzine arrived at the parade to show their support for the Jewish State.
Giant banners featuring photographed Israelis were placed along the parade route to demonstrate Israel’s diversity
Klal Yisruel said the Berucheh Ve’Lamnashinim with more Kavuneh yesterday!
Wow! What a Chilul Hashem!!!
Kechul Hagoiyim Bies Yisruel???
Im not refering to the Mechalelieh Shabbos that made up the majority of the particapants, who even says that they are Yidden at all!
But Im reffering to the so called Frimmeh Yidden that were there! Shomi Shumayim! Vee Shaimt Men zich nisht!
There is so much Tzurois RCHM”LZ by klal Yisruel, how can a Jew have a part in such a massive Chilul Hashem!!??
To Dave says: Take your Frim KEIT and go back to KJ!
Sorry Pal! I live in Flatbush! I dont even wear a Shtriemel! I just a plain Frum Jew!
Dave, do you attend the parade?
Or just a pontificator?
Chilul shabbos, huh, do you know the marchers or spectators, your assumption is if you dont like the look then they are not from your camp. You got alot to learn, and to be aware of.
Fox News reported last night that a million people were at the parade
“m not refering to the Mechalelieh Shabbos that made up the majority of the particapants, who even says that they are Yidden at all!”
Most of the marchers were children in yeshivos and day schools in the area. its the largest display of jewish unity ever. (much more than the siyum hashas) im sorry that you werent there to be part of such a kiddush hashem
Dave, if you’re such a frum Jew why don’t you use a Jewish name?
And if you’re so concerned about people being not-frum at the parade, go out there and make them frum! Put on tefillin with them, teach them how to light Shabbos candles, learn a bissel Torah with them. Here was a perfect opportunity for you to help mekarev your fellow Yidden.
Don’t forget – each one of us is not complete until every last Yid is complete. Kol Yisroel arevim zeh lozeh. If there is a pain or infection in one part of the body, it affects the whole body. It doesn’t help to distance yourself from them and criticize them. Would you criticize your toe for being infected? That’s ridiculous.
Help them! Show some love and care. You’ll be amazed at what that can accomplish.
i am a frimme yid and i was there what exactly DAVE was the chillul hashem?????????? are you chillul hashem free???????????? just because u werent there doesnt make u any holier!!!!!!!!!! if u dont like to go that dont dont no one forced u…. but i am sure if the neturei karta ppl started protesting then i am sure all of a sudden u would be cursing them out… unless ur one of them so hat u say means nothing
Frum Jews see yad Ha-shem in the world. Pity that dave doesn’t.
dave
for the record,95% of the participants were frum yiden.
the only chilul hashem is your far-krimta hashkofah.
The only chillul Hashem there was the Neturei Karta who showed up.
Dave – I didn’t go to the parade I don’t think I think I will ever go to the parade – but its NKinks like you that make me sick to my stomach, you love Arabs more then you love Jews (orthodox or not). you go to parade on shobbas kodesh with mega phones denouncing the state of Israel. you should be ashamed of your self. Our saintly rabbis of the past generation as much as they disagreed with the concept of Jewish state, they never sat down to talk with Arabs
There was a story heard over about the founding father of neturi karta. there was a yeshiva boy who needed to drop something off by Rabbi Amram Blau’s house. when the boy walk in he saw Rabbi Blau serving lunch to non other then members of the Israeli army – whether or not he liked their ideology’s a Jew was a Jew
so to all you NKnicks go back to Iran and deny the holocaust
Hundreds joined Am Echad, a new grassroots organization promoting tolerance and unity, in marching at the Salute To Israel parade up 5th Ave. Joining this year, were various different chasiddim and yeshiva students from Satmar, Bobov, Vizhnitz, and Lubavitch.
For 3 years, Am Echad has been working behind the scenes with the disenfranchised members of the charedi community who have been misunderstood and abandoned by a community that does not nurture their individuality, leading to a rise in drug abuse, abortions, and desperation.
Inspired by Isaac Schonfeld, director of the famous weekly Chulent group, Mark Appel, an Upper West Side businessman and community activist declared yesterday that the war has begun to reclaim our beautiful youth and their potential for greatness, with love and a new sense of hope and trust.
We will use every resource available in challenging the Rabbis and leaders to stop this epidemic.
Can we trust todays’ Rabbis and so-called communal leaders who rip apart their OWN families with litigation and brutal communal disputes to do anything legitimately constructive?
Absolutely not, says Appel, who has opened his house 24/7 as a safe haven for kids who have been abused and ignored by their community and families for simply wanting a better and more normal life.
LET THE LEADERS TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY, and spend money on building community centers, libraries, vocational and job training centers, instead of fighting Lipa Shmaeltzer and organizing highly publicized and generally impractical trips to dead tzaddikim all over the world. LETS FOCUS ON THOSE LIVING RIGHT HERE IN OUR BACKYARD, SOMETIME UNDER OUR OWN ROOFS WHO NEED HELP, LIFE, LOVE, AND CHIZUK.
AM ECHAD We are One.
The title of this article is incorrect. You probably picked it up off a news wire but believe me there were over a million there yesterday. The number is usually given at a milliuon and the numbers yesterday were much bigger. The parade was longer by at least 3 blocks in the south and by one block in the north. All jammed with viewers.
The blight on humanity that is the NK and Arabs standing on 59th were a easily forgotten disturbance. Did everybody like the marshmallows?
maymhashem bless am echad we are on firee
To Shmuel: Just because someone has a problem with the parade, doest not mean that he loves arabs & doens’t mean that he belongs to NK. Our saintly rabbis of the past generation inasmuch as they loved EVERY YID, when it came to issues of Yiddishkeit, they weren’t shy about voicing their opinions. As far as am echad is concerned, I doubt there were ANY yeshiva students from any of the chassidus that you mention. And Anon 1:57, the only “far-krimta hashkofah” is your own. It was for goor reason that the R”R Meilech predicted that before Moshiach comes it will as hard zich tzi halten in de emineh azoi vee tzi shtain oif a spitz fin a schverd.
when moschiach comes wre the neturi katrta going to refuse tp go to eretz yisroel because thell say its just a zionist propoganda
to yankee sadly, am echad deals with hundrend of kids from yeshiva background please help us by inviting and offering to open youre heart to these sweet neshumas mma
this zionist country will protect all the jews no matter frum or not against the new rising hitler dont support it speak against it but they will still protect you when you will need to come running for safety there.
lots of the songs they sing are from the torah what is the chilul hashem there
the real chilul hashem is one jew to another you to the jewish people of the world spewing so called frumkeit love your brother no matter what
na nach nachma nachman meuman
Hey Dave, Are you that blind not to realize that it is “your kind” with those kind of comments that cause all the anti semitizim in the world? Maybe if you opened your eyes and ears instead of your mouth you could learn something being a mench and properly portray what Judisim is about. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I need to write a post about why I didn’t go to the Israeli Day Parade despite loving Israel as much as anyone; but its just not coming.
Part of me supposes that I am finding the post impossible to write because I really don’t care about Israel. That stings a little. In my imagination I care about Israel as much as anyone, but maybe I don’t, not really, or at least not in the way that the marchers care about Israel. I don’t think I am ready to admit that to anyone, though, including myself. And anyway what does it mean not to care about Israel?
I’d be sad if it disappeared. Horrified, in fact. I don’t want Jews to die. (There is something a little vulgar about how I feel required to say this, as if the matter would be in doubt, if I left this unsaid. But its true: If I don’t say it outright, some people will pretend and/or presume that I want Jews to die. A little sick, that.) I know many thousands of Jews are alive today because of Israel.
So why can’t I demonstrate that this is what I think and feel by marching? Is something wrong with me? Am I too lazy to get to the parade? Am I selfish?
But isn’t everyone selfish in that we all just do the things that make us feel good? Don’t all of us, at bottom, structure our lives in ways that provide us with the most pleasure and the least pain?
So why doesn’t going to the parade make me feel good? Why isn’t participating in the parade a source of pleasure? Is it because – let’s face it – parades are sort of boring? In fact, the whole idea of a parade – we all agree; we all think alike; we’re a monolith of support; rah rah rah – sort of makes me recoil.
A thought: I’ve noticed that pro-Israel psychos and anti-Israel psychos disturb me in the exact same way. And the way that both kind of psychos disturb me is fundementally similar to the way that Charedi-ism disturbs me, which at bottom, is how all “isms” disturb me, which – aha! – is the thing about parades that makes me recoil. Smugness. Certainty. Us against Them. So is my ambivilance about Israel related to my general distaste for ideologies? Is that why I distance myself from Israel? Because I can’t seperate Israel from the unreflective head-nodding of some of its supporters?
But, hold the phone. Israel is more than the sum of its supporters, isn’t it? And its not like every supporter of Israel is the sort of psycho I’ve described. TO isn’t. Jameel isn’t. Anyway, neyond what those multivarious supporters say and do, Israel serves a purpose, doesn’t it? And its a purpose, I am supposed to support. There are living, breathing Jews in Israel, who belong to any number of different ideologies themselves, and all of them would be endangered if Israel were to vanish.
Lots of Jews are better off now because of Israel. Perhaps all of us are. But is Israel still a sanctuary and a safe haven for Jews?
I am not so sure. Anyone with a cursory understanding of risk management knows that it isn’t a good idea for all the Jews to be in one place. Makes it too easy for one nut with a big bomb to knock us all off. As father Jacob’s behavior showed us, sometimes its wise to divide the camps. And how many Jewish communities are still huddling in fear under the rule of an anti-Semite? Not many. And even in places like Iran, where the few remaining Jews are living pinched and danger-filled lives, how many of them are really and truly trapped? Wouldn’t the mullahs be glad to see them leave?
And, along with the expiration, or, if you prefer, fulfilment of Israel’s original purpose, I find that even the idea of “Israel” has become wrapped up, in my mind at least, with so much effed-up nonsense, and worse, all of this nonesense becomes kosher, depending with whom you speak, under the heading of “This is what God wants” or “He gave US this land” or “Those Arabs are so much worse” or “Those Arabs started”
In my faulty perception, talking to a certain type of Zionist is exactly like talking to a certain type if charedi. Some charedim attempt to shuts down any debate or conversation about how to make Judaism better by insisting that everything Charedim do is ipso fact the correct and authentic way for Jews to do things. I grew up with Zionosts who offered similar justifications for everything Israel did: Israel was always right, because nothing Israel did could ever be wrong. The media was always wrong, because the media was a monolith that, down to the last man, hated Israel. Same for the Arabs who were always capital E evil. Any attempt by me to bring nuance or new facts to the conversation was taken as proof that I hated Israel, that something was wrong with me for seeing things no one else wanted to notice.
So maybe I just gave up? Maybe I said to hell with it, and backed off leaving the Zionists to their Zionism, as I wish I could leave the Charedim to the Charedism?
Sometimes, I just want to wash my hands of Zionism, in the same way that I sometimes want to wash my hands of charedi nonsense. Sometimes I see the Zionists like I see the Charedim, in that both groups are certain they’re right, indifferent to nuance, and convinced that any attempt to disagree, is a demonstration of your own defectivness. (Do I need to say the this is a generalization that doesn’t apply to every Charedi or every Zionist? Ok. Said it.)
And Im not sure how much or how little sense this makes, but let’s make a post out of it.
dov ber……….the reason we march is to show the world that we are united as am achod when it comes to be a united front against the murders of innocent korbonos. chasidim litvaks we are all aAM ECHAD
I agree with lazer.
Na Na Nachman MeUman