Op-Ed: Looking back after the parade

By Elizabeth Berney

Special to the web on June 16, 2009 / 24 Sivan 5769

The annual Salute to Israel Parade up Fifth Avenue and Salute to Israel Concert in Central Park immediately following it are always joyous events. Thousands of individuals representing groups from throughout the Jewish spectrum and other supporters come together to demonstrate their love for Israel. Somehow, the day always seems to be blessed with sunshine. Unfortunately, there always also seem to be a few individuals bent on marring a beautiful day. This year seems to have been true to form in all these respects...

Those of us who wish to march in the parade often have the pleasant problem of having to decide among several wonderful choices of groups to join. This year, I marched with SHAI – Sephardic Heritage Association, from Great Neck. Four busloads of us, all wearing yellow T-shirts emblazoned with blue stars, traveled to Manhattan and congregated near the beginning of the parade route, and then began marching with banners and an Israeli flag which was so large that over a dozen people were needed to carry it. We marched right behind a large contingent from a school at Temple Israel of Great Neck, whose participants were wearing t-shirts which were almost identical to the SHAI T-shirts, creating a veritable sea of yellow with blue stars.

Several blocks north of the beginning of the parade route, we encountered the annual anti-Israel protest. A small group of Arabs and a few misguided anti-Zionist Jews were holding up hateful signs, under the protection of a cordon of police officers and police barriers.  Unfortunately, the signs were strategically placed so that they could be seen by almost every marcher in the parade. An Arab held up the last sign in the group, which read: “Close Gitmo. Re-Open Auschwitz.”

I –– along the rest of the crowd marching by –– was visibly upset to see this detestable message. It is one thing to see such depravity in Internet recordings of Arab rampages in France and Ft. Lauderdale, and another thing to see such hatred up close. The response to the Auschwitz sign swelled up spontaneously. Dozens of us in the Temple Israel and SHAI groups began singing “Am Yisrael Chai, Am Yisrael Chai” (the original version) at the tops of our lungs.  Israel still lives, Israel still lives, despite those who would destroy her.

As the parade continued onward, the crowds along 5th Avenue grew larger and were uniformly friendly. Signs of encouragement and cheers were in abundance. One sign brought a good laugh:  “Help us make Aliyah. Buy our house in Elizabeth New Jersey.”

After reaching the top of the parade route, backtracking to the Central Park concert entrance was another adventure. The sidewalk was jammed with parade watchers, T-shirt and chatchka vendors, and a woman musician rolling a full-sized harp down the block, to name a few.

But it was worth braving the crowds to hear one music group after another liven up the day at the concert in Central Park. At one point, it started raining, but most of the crowd remained near the stage, listening to the music and the speakers. They were rewarded with a resurgence of sunshine for the rest of the day.

The featured speaker at the 16th Salute to Israel Day Concert this year was Gilad Shalit's heartbroken father, who movingly spoke about how his son has been held incommunicado and tortured by Hamas terrorists for the past 1,071 days. He pleaded with us to help his son.  I then spoke briefly about how Obama (with Congressman Ackerman's support) has pledged $900 million to “rebuild Gaza” –– the territory of the same group which is holding Gilad hostage. I urged everyone to write letters and make phone calls demanding that if Obama and Ackerman want to give such huge amounts of our tax dollars to Gaza, the first condition must be that Gilad Shalit is freed, and the second condition should be that every rocket in Gaza is dismantled and destroyed before a single dime is sent there.

The speakers at the concert also noted that the impediment to peace is unrelenting Palestinian terrorism, not the settlements.  Uprooting Jewish communities consisting of hundreds of thousands of Jews would be a humanitarian disaster, and will not bring peace.

I walked around the concert audience area for several hours after leaving the stage. People were enjoying a beautiful day and beautiful music, munching on falafel, and quietly speaking about how frightened they are for Israel's fate in the face of the pressures from the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, a few days after the concert, someone circulated a claim on the Internet that some young Jews in the parade concert audience sang a revised version of "Am Yisrael Chai," which contained a line seeking the demise of the Arabs. During my several hours of walking around the concert audience area, I never saw or heard anyone sing such an altered version of “Am Yisrael Chai.”   I also checked with numerous others who attended the concert, and none of them saw or heard anyone sing such a song.  If this occurred, it was an isolated incident which did not reflect the actions and words of the thousands of others present.

The thousands of parade-goers and concert-goers had a beautiful and meaningful day, peacefully and appropriately demonstrating their support for Israel at all the Salute to Israel Day festivities.

Elizabeth Berney, Esq. worked on the human rights Holocaust cases against the Swiss and German banks.  She specializes in prosecuting securities fraud and consumer fraud matters.  She ran for Congress in 2008 in New York's 5th Congressional District (northeast Queens and northern Nassau County) and may run again in 2010.