Israel Day on Fifth
Local groups join the parade
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- Students and faculty from Golda Och Academy’s upper and lower schools gather at the parade.
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- Students and faculty from the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston all walk up Fifth Avenue.
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- Students from the JEC’s lower school and its high school for boys and girls march together behind the school’s banner.
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- Students from JEC High School in Elizabeth hold up their banner.
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- Students from Kushner stand together, draped in an Israeli flag.
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- These Tzofim — Israeli scouts — are from New Jersey and New York.
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- Students from JEC’s Bruriah High School in Elizabeth stand together on Fifth Avenue.
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- Students from the Golda Och Academy in West Orange smile at the camera.
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- These students, from JEC’s Lower School in Elizabeth, show their support for Israel.
Tens of thousands of people thousands of people marched up Fifth Avenue on Sunday. The crowd, marchers and onlookers alike, was estimated at more than 50,000 as the Israel Day on Fifth parade, with floats, bands, and large numbers of students and faculty from local day schools, including many from MetroWest and North Jersey, as well as representatives of other Jewish organization and Maccabiah Games athletes.
The day was gorgeous; many marchers waved flags, many sang, some danced, and lots of little kids beamed as they walked. Representatives of many local shuls stood on the sidewalks and cheered as the parade passed by.
It was the 61st time the parade marched uptown; it’s changed names many times — most recently it was the Celebrate Israel parade, and before that simply the Israel Day parade — but the route remained unchanged, and so did the high spirits, even though the outside world doesn’t look the same.
The parade’s theme was HaTikvah; in English, that’s the hope. There were some hostages who were freed from Gaza at the parade, and the father of a hostage who still is being held. There are many things to hope for Israel; one of the most immediate is freedom for the remaining hostages. The march made that clear.
It was organized, as usual, by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, with support from UJA of New York. Local and state politicians marched; there’s a primary coming soon, as none of them forgot.
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