The Tao of Steve

Imagine being in the biggest crowd of Jews and other supporters of Israel that you have ever seen in your life.

That was my experience on November 14, 2023 on the Capitol Mall in Washington D.C.

290,000 supporters of Israel came from across the US to advocate and show up for Israel. The Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations and Federation pulled this whole thing together in less that a week, and so kudos to them!

The crowd was massive! And I’d dare say, it was the largest gathering for Israel in US history.

Of course, you cannot please everyone, and there were some sigificant concerns that one group or other was either over-represented, or not represented enough. One thing was clear, we have a large and messy Jewish community but I think the organizers did a great job threrading the needle and tried to bring the largerst, most inclusive group possible.

It was a classic example of what the JCRC refers to as “Big Tent” organizing.

I think Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council put it best, in a recent article in ejewish philanthropy

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/we-came-to-washington-united-march-for-israel/,

“That feeling of unity was palpable as we flooded the National Mall on Tuesday: 290,000 of us — religious and secular, left-wing and right-wing — put aside our differences to focus on supporting Israel during this dark time, calling for the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza, and countering the antisemitism surging through the veins of our country’s institutions and public squares.”

The spirit was broad and inclusive and overwhelmingly focused on three issues:

• Advocacy and support for Israel in light of the terrible massacres perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7th and Israel’s justified military response
• The insidious rise of Anti-Semitism in the US and elsewhere, largely in response to Israel’s military actions in Gaza
• Freeing the 240 innocent men, women and children being held hostage in Gaza

I cannot tell you how many communities were represented but the two that I am most closely affiliated from the West Coast had strong representation. About 40 came from Portland, Oregon and another 120 came from the San Francisco Bay Area. (I was told LA was well-represented with over 130 in attendance.) The list of participants went on and on…

I saw people from EVERYWHERE ELSE. The ones that stood out to me were Cleveland, Boston, Cincinnati. It seemed that the entire school community of Yeshiva University was in attendance ( I heard they, and many other educational institutions cancelled classes to allow their students to attend.)

If you represented from another location, please let me know!

And what large event would not be complete without Bingo?

First one to declare BINGO gets a hearty clap on the back, a “Yasher Koach” and a “Siman Tov U’Mazel Tov” redeemable at your next shul appearance, Aliyah, or similar gathering place! 🙂

But back to the event itself, I have seen lots of descriptions in the press and I think this was a pretty fair description from the Times of Israel .

All of the pre-rally information was telling people to be careful and circumspect with what we displayed in public on the way to the rally site. I’m sure they were doing that out of an abundance of caution.

Riding to the rally, people pretty much kept all of their Israel paraphernalia to themselves. I had my flag wadded up in my pocket and I was just sitting there like any normal commuter.

But riding home was a totally different matter. After the Rally, I think people’s inhibitions had kind of gone away. Well that and the fact that 290,000 people were trying to hit the Metro at the same time. The Israel paraphernalia was everywhere on the way home.

When I got off the Metro close to where my host’s house was I was walking back and I ran into three or four people on the sidewalk that were giving me fist bumps and asking me how I liked the rally, and we exchanged a lot of “where are you froms?”

The only hint of a security problem was when I was walking back from where the Bay Area delegation had set up shop to hand out T-shirts and I was crossing the street and this guy made a left turn behind me and yelled Free Palestine. But that was about it really. I’m sure the Yahoos pretty much got the message to stay away because they knew they were going to be vastly outnumbered.

I don’t think you could have been in a safer location. There were more cops there than at Ben Gurion Airport.