I too attended the Support Israel Parade in New York on Sunday and, while I know there were anti-Israel demonstrators somewhere, I couldn’t see them.
Lets just explain the scale of this event because it took me a bit by surprise.
- For 20 blocks 5th Avenue is shut off while a steady stream of floats and people march from the south to the north.
- This parade of continuous supporters of Israel, some Jewish, some not, lasted from 11am to 4pm. That’s a lot of people marching by.
- It took us 10 mins to get across 5th Ave and find a shaddy spot on the park side to watch. There were people everywhere! It was very hard to move around.
- The crowd was uniformly friendly.
This is a huge event people and it made me think about America’s relationship with Jews and Israel. Other countries tolerate their Jews. Perhaps they realise that they can’t be good people unless they are tolerant, even of Jews.
America is on another level. Jews, are good for America and, mostly, America knows that and gives Jews the best place to live in the world, outside of their own, newly formed, country.
There was a lot of mutual love on show in that parade: Israel and Jews for America and vice versa.
And I didn’t see one person burn a Saudi flag and shout “Death to Arabia!”.
Thank you America: I, as a Jew and father of an Israeli, sure feel welcome in America. Much more than I ever did in London.