Manhattan, NY – An estimated thirty thousand people took part in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade in New York City Sunday. This is the largest number of participants ever in the parade, which has been held every year since 1964.
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Fifth Avenue was awash in the blue and white of the Israeli flag for Sunday’s Celebrate Israel Parade, whose mood reflected rising tensions in the Mideast this year.
“We’ve always been saying, we’re ready to negotiate,” said Yuli Yoel Edelstein, Israel’s minister of information and diaspora, and grand marshal of this year’s march. “But the Palestinians have a unilateral approach; this is not the way you reach statehood.”
The thousands of marchers who stepped off at 57th Street late Sunday morning included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, followed later by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and U.S. Sens. Kristen Gillibrand and Charles Schumer.
Notably absent was U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has attended in past years. The Democratic congressman has had a rough week while struggling to explain how a photo of a man’s crotch in boxer briefs had been posted to his Twitter account and sent to a 21-year-old female college student in Seattle.
“I’m a very good friend of Congressman Weiner’s and I think he’s making his own decisions,” Gillibrand said during the parade.
“The impact on the congressman and what it means to people, we’ll wait and see,” Cuomo said. “It’s going to be up to the congressman how he handles it and then people will have an opinion when they actually have the facts.”
Schumer declined to comment on Weiner’s absence.
Organizers say the annual parade, which started in 1964, is the largest in the world celebrating the founding of the Jewish state in 1948.
In recent months, “Arab Spring” uprisings and the formation of a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas dimmed hopes of renewed peace talks.
On Sunday, Israeli troops battled hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters who tried to burst across Syria’s frontier with the Golan Heights, reportedly killing 20 people. Scores more were wounded in the second outbreak of deadly violence in the border area in less than a month.
“We must be conscious of what’s going on overseas,” said city Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who stood at the side of Fifth Avenue, overseeing a strong police presence that stretched to the end of the parade route at 79th Street.
“My job is to make sure everything goes well,” the commissioner said.
Behind police barricades were thousands of observers, some carrying signs criticizing President Barack Obama’s policy speech last month on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The president said Israel’s boundaries before the 1967 Mideast war should be the starting point for negotiations on any future borders.
“The Palestinians should have some territory, but not the 1967 borders, which would make Israel indefensible,” said one parade observer, Paul Abad, 22, a New York college student who said his father is Arabic from Cuba, and his mother a Jewish New Yorker.
He was wrapped in an Israeli flag, wearing a T-shirt that said, “Israel Defense Forces.”
One Fifth Avenue sidewalk was filled with two groups of protesters who have appeared each year, both critical of Israel: anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose Israel’s existence, saying only the Messiah can establish a Jewish state; and supporters of a Palestinian state who hoisted their red, black, white and green flags.
I am proud to say i was there. it was awesome!
I wish it was always held when we can hear music..it’s usually during Sefira & I won’t go for that reason only.
Sign me…a proud Zionist Chasid!
Why are the protesters (NKs) called Ultra Orthodox Jews? They are traitors, villians, and lunitics who went to Iran on Shaboss and desecrated the holy Shaboss. They protest together with the Palistinian murders. They talk with Iranians who want to murder every Jew and they deny the Holocaust. So my question is why are they called Ultra Orthodox? The only thing orthodox about them is their Purim costumes. This phrase attributing Ultra Orthodox status to them must be corrected.
Regarding the various tour books for NYC (i.e. Fodor’s, Frommer’s, etc.), the various parades which New York City hosts every year are mentioned. For example, St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Columbus Day Parade, Thanksgiving Parade, Chinese New Year, Puerto Rican Day Parade, and other parades. Yet, the annual Salute to Israel Parade is not mentioned. When this omission was brought to their attention, a satisfactory, and credible explanation to this day, has never been presented.
I’m please to know that the Neturei Karta are still attending rather than spending another weekend with that Iranian lunatic.
30, 000 marched, over 1000,000 were there as of 12:30 pm count .
it was wonderful!!
I was there. It was awesome. I must say I was standing on 5th ave right across the NK and they looked like animals off the street. Most people just saw them and laughed and saw them for the clowns they are. I was surprised how many frumma were there – nice to see
I stayed until 12:30. I dunno. It seems like every year there are fewer real floats, and more rows and rows of kids who attend every imaginable school. And the floats? Some have even less to do with Israel than the other. I mean, some random dance school with half dressed Black girls doing provocative twists with their various anatomical features? I gave up at 12:30, or so, just after El Al distributed a million Israeli flags, which meant with all the flags shoved in my face I could barely see, let alone take any pictures.
just watched the channel 9 televised parade, says hundreds of thousands were there
wooooo hoooooooooo
? IFonly moshiach can establish a Jewish state, and today there IS a Jewish state, then doesn’t this mean that moshiach IS here?
thank you channel 9 for telivising the parade
Baruch Hashem, I was there with my two wonderful kinderlach, Shlomo, 10, and Yudi, 8, bli ayin harah, and I had the one of the best days of my life. May G-d bless the State of Israel, and bring a geula shleima!
Mazel Tov on israels birtday.May you grow in strenght with torah as the basis of its survival.May we all rralize Hashems miracle performed on our times with Israel as OUR country..
I was there with my family, at the intersection of 5th and 74th, on the park side. It was quite something to see. Kudos to the NYPD for providing extremely tight security and keeping things moving along.