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Overcast Billboards for Gilad Shalit
By Elana Dure
Issue of September 3, 2010/ 24 Elul 5770At Times Square, known as the crossroads of the world, seven words flash across a 30-by-40 square foot, hi-definition digital billboard: Let Gilad know he is not alone.
Corporal Gilad Shalit marked his 24th birthday on August 28, — his fifth birthday as a hostage of Hamas, which kidnapped him from an IDF border patrol in June of 2006. He is denied contact with the outside world.
Attempts to secure his release have thus far been unsuccessful.
The hard-to-miss billboard is on the W Hotel at 47th Street in Times Square where it can be seen by thousands. The video short about Shalit will be shown four times per hour daily, through Sept. 5. It launched on Aug 30. The billboard presents a 30-second video excerpt and the full video can be seen online at giladgreetings.org.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is sponsoring the site and billboard, which is intended to give people around the world the opportunity to express their unity with Shalit. The site also urges the International Committee of the Red Cross to compel Hamas to allow the ICRC to visit Shalit and establish that his conditions of confinement abide by international laws.
The site encourages and enables people to send digital greeting cards to Shalit, either for his birthday or for Rosh Hashana. Printed cards can also be sent by mail to the Conference of Presidents or dropped off at participating JCCs, many of which are listed on the site. The Conference of Presidents will deliver the cards to the ICRC and the ICRC will bring the cards to Shalit. These greeting cards from the general public are intended to let Gilad know that he is not alone.
