Sunday, June 4, 2006
Atlas has pics of the parade.
An emailer reports:
What a Pleasure.
It was a pleasure to watch thousands of enthusiastic young people march up Fifth Avenue, proudly carrying banners and singing in Hebrew. they came in groups. dozens of day schools. synagogues. youth gorups. Adults marched and rode on floats, Hadassah, the Federations, Magen David Adom. A contingent of El Al pilots stopped every couple of blocks to sing and dance. One group carried a twenty foot long model of the Temple at Jerusalem. Several carried American or Israeli flags the size of the one that flew over Fort McHenry in 1812.
But the great pleasure, by contrast with the annual Boston event, was the absence of the anti-Semites. For this we owe thanks to the New York City Police. The Israel-haters and the anti-Israel Jews did show up. There was the daughter of a well-known Boston Rabbi who walked along the parade route handing out Jews Against the Occupation brochures. She had the decency to blush when I hugged her and asked how her parents are. She dashed off after muttering something about being "on the wrong side." But for the most part, the spewers of hate who some years make the Boston event unpleasant were roped into a "few speech zone" in front of the Plaza Hotel at 59th and Fifth. I was told that about twenty crackpots from Neturei Karta were there, along with several dozen assorted racists who want to abolish the Jewish state. But the NYPD kept them in their pen and the rest of us could enjoy the day without seeing them or hearing them.
We could stand lining Fifth Avenue on both sides several people deep for over a mile, smiling toddlers with baloons, proud grandparents with little Israeli and American flags entwined on their lapels, and watch wave after wave of Jewish youth march past singing out their pride and solidarity with Israel.
My emailer is right...with much love and respect to the Boston Police who do a great and courteous job every year, my one criticism is that they allow the various haters way too close to the marchers. Though they did finally push them back later in the day, they've been a bit slow in that, and this past year they also allowed them to use amplification which should be a no-no without a permit. Free speech is one thing, intentionally ruining a family day out is another. There is a way that everyone can have their rights upheld. It sounds like they figured it out in New York. I truly hope they're prepared this year here in Boston.
By the way, those who are going to be participating this June 18th in Boston can thank the Islamic Society of Boston in part for the protesters they'll be seeing. They allowed their Muslim-American Society moderated email list to be used to distribute the New England Committee to Defend Palestine's (no link -- I did that enough in this post) call to "Protest [the] Racist Celebration of "Israel" in Boston" which angrily announced, "Don't let them hold this racist march in Boston."
Just remember who helped and who didn't as you run your kids through the freakshow on your way to the moonbounce, face painting, and balloon artists.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Israel Day in New York -- And a note on who to thank for this year's protesters in Boston.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF06Ak03.html
My understanding is that the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Society of Boston are two different groups. The ISB is a congregation (or a set of congregations--I've been unclear), and the Muslim American Society is an organization, and I believe a national one. I'm sure there's overlap, just as there will be members of a synagogue who are active in AIPAC or the AJC, but it soudns like the focus of your criticism should be the Muslim-American Society, not the IIslamic Society of Boston.
The lines are confusing. The ISB's email list is run by the MAS-Boston. It's the same list that it's always been when it was done through the ISB's own url (isboston.org). The ISB is free and welcome to disavow or clarify any link to MAS-Boston, however. Either way, the MAS people (Mahdi Bray, Hamza Pelletier etc...) are on the forefront of portraying themselves and their organizations as moderate friends of interfaith and intercommunity dialogue. Come on the 18th and see our moderate friends in action.
"the spewers of hate who some years make the Boston event unpleasant were roped into a "few speech zone" in front of the Plaza Hotel at 59th and Fifth. I was told that about twenty crackpots from Neturei Karta were there, along with several dozen assorted racists who want to abolish the Jewish state. But the NYPD kept them in their pen. . . "
They do this every year. Last year some Protest Warriors stood across the street and the two groups had a yelling match. It was fun a a little while.