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Anatomy Of A Rally
One of the fascinating and never-resolved issues in our community is when and how to hold a pro-Israel rally, and this week’s debate among leaders in New York was a case in point.
With pro-Palestinian holding large demonstrations here and in other parts of the country over the last week, pressure built on Jewish groups to respond in kind. Some leaders urged a mass rally to show support for Israel in its fight with Hamas, while others worried that a small turnout on a winter’s day might signal lack of concern on the part of American Jewry. Still others noted that with Congress and other public officials squarely on Israel’s side, rallies might not be the best use of time or resources.
While the discussion went on in some circles, Rabbi Avi Weiss, who among other roles is head of AMCHA (Coalition for Jewish Concerns), called from Israel last Saturday night to urge Hillary Markowitz, a veteran activist here, to organize a rally for the next day.
She said that was impossible, but managed to plan one for Tuesday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, across the street from the Israeli Consulate.
Markowitz, a nurse, enlisted Meredith Weiss, also a volunteer, and other pro-Israel activists, with “zero budget,” according to Glenn Richter, who has been organizing such rallies since the 1960s campaign to free Soviet Jewry.
On Tuesday afternoon, an impressive crowd of several thousand people turned out on little notice for a the rally, sponsored by AMCHA, Fuel For Truth, the National Council of Young Israel and about 20 other organizations.
Despite the cold temperatures, the spirited crowd responded warmly to a number of speakers who stressed that their presence was as Americans opposed to terror as well as Zionists supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.
Several young people who were themselves wounded in Hamas terror attacks or lost friends or relatives in attacks addressed the rally, as did Fuel For Truth executive director Joe Richards, who asserted: “Free Palestine…from terror, and from Hamas.”
National and local media were on the scene, and the event was featured on radio and television news broadcasts that day and evening.
“This is the way it should be done,” an Israeli official told me during the event. “There’s something to be said for spontaneity, for responding” while others are deliberating as to whether, when and where to speak out. If nothing else, he said, it allows activists to give vent to their emotions in a positive way.
Later, Markowitz expressed deep gratitude for those who attended, including busloads of students from schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey. But she was upset that establishment Jewish groups declined to participate, charging that they refused to send out e-mails to constituents and even encouraged people not to attend, instead urging them to wait for the community-wide rally, planned for Sunday morning, Jan. 11, outside the Consulate.
“I can understand that they didn’t want to co-sponsor, even though we were paying for it,” Markowitz said, “but don’t undermine our rally. It’s very upsetting to me that we are not unified.”
Markowitz said she spoke with Michael Miller, executive vice president and CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, and that he wished her well but said his group plans and coordinates rallies, rather than joins one organized by others.
Miller confirmed that remark, but strongly denied that JCRC would tell people not to attend the rally. He explained that his group is “supportive of every rally for Israel,” but “generally speaking,” does not circulate information for other groups. “In essence we would be endorsing an event over which he have no control,” he said.
In the past, speakers from marginal pro-Israel groups have addressed community-wide rallies and made statements that have caused discomfort and embarrassment to politicians and Jewish leaders, one source noted.
In the meantime, the Conference of Presidents, UJA-Federation of New York and the JCRC are gearing up for a large-scale rally on Sunday. And one can be sure that many of the folks who braved the cold on Tuesday will be there again, caring less about who the sponsors are than the cause itself: showing support for Israel in a time of crisis.
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The post Anatomy Of A Rally appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Macklemore Leads ‘Free Palestine’ Chant After Performing New Anti-Israel Song in New Zealand
Macklemore performs at Alcatraz Milan on May 3, 2023 in Milan, Italy. Photo: Roberto Finizio via Reuters Connect
Macklemore performed his new anti-Israel song live for the first time on Wednesday night during a concert in Wellington, New Zealand, where he also led the sold-out crowd in chanting, “Free, free Palestine.”
The Seattle-based rapper, whose real name is Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, performed Hind’s Hall at his first of two Wellington shows in the TSB Arena.
In the song, which was released a day earlier, the Grammy winner expresses solidarity with anti-Israel activists demonstrating at colleges and universities across the US, criticizes US support for Israel, and denounces the Jewish state’s military actions in its ongoing war against Hamas terrorists controlling the Gaza Strip. The war was launched in response to the deadly Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Images of the Palestinian flag were projected across the stadium in Wellington as Macklemore performed Hind’s Hall. Later in the concert, the rapper allegedly called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, The Guardian reported. The music video for Hind’s Hall also played on a screen behind the stage while Macklemore rapped the track’s lyrics on Wednesday night.
He told the audience: “I stand here today and every day forward for the rest of my life in solidarity with the people of Palestine, with an open heart, in the belief that our collective liberation is at stake — that we all deserve freedom in this life of ours.”
Macklemore said on Tuesday that all proceeds from Hind’s Hall will be donated to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees had 19 of its employees allegedly participate in the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. UNRWA has also been accused in the past of providing Palestinian schools with textbooks that incite antisemitism, terrorism, and anti-Israel sentiments.
The post Macklemore Leads ‘Free Palestine’ Chant After Performing New Anti-Israel Song in New Zealand first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Miss Israel Gets Threatened by Knife-Wielding Antisemite While Talking to New Yorkers About Israel
Former Miss Israel Noa Cochva talking to New Yorkers about Israel on May 6, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
Former Miss Israel Noa Cochva was threatened by an antisemitic woman in New York City this week while trying to have peaceful conversations with locals about Israel.
On Monday, Cochva participated in a social experiment with the organization Facts for Peace in which she walked around Washington Square Park in New York City while holding a sign that read, “I’m an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldier, ask me anything.” The 25-year-old beauty queen, who represented Israel in the Miss Universe pageant held in Eilat in 2021, was approached by some pro-Israel supporters who hugged her and thanked her for being brave and speaking out in solidarity with the Jewish state. Speaking to an American military officer who stopped to talk with her, Cochva discussed feeling a sense of purpose for serving her country. Cochva served as a combat medic in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
However, she also received a negative response from other New Yorkers, some of whom called her a “war criminal” and said, “This is f—king stupid. You guys should go home.” When one man asked Cochva,”“How do you sleep at night?” she clapped back: “I sleep really well because I know I’m on the right side of history.”
In a video from the social experiment that was shared on Instagram by both Facts for Peace and Cochva, the former beauty pageant queen could be seen talking to a man on camera when a woman crashed their discussion and said, “Sorry to interrupt, I heard there was a Zionist here.” The same woman lunged at Cochva’s team with a knife, cursed at them, and berated the group by calling them “little Zionists.” She also told Cochva’s cameraman, “My daddy owns your little Jewish b—ch daddy.”
When Cochva’s group invited her to have a conversation with the beauty queen, she avoided the opportunity by giving excuses such as, “No, I only care about being seen” and “I only speak ASL [American Sign Language].” When she asked one man in Cochva’s group for some of his water and he said no, she replied, “Oh, you’re a Zionist. I get it.”
Cochva filmed a video after the incident commenting on what took place and the criticism she faced from Israel-haters. While holding back tears, she told the camera, “I was just trying to have peaceful conversations with them. But it’s a whole different experience to witness something like that. We can’t let things like this happen.”
On Wednesday, the Instagram account Jew Hate Database exposed the knife-wielding woman as Ruby Marzovilla, a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio who works as a “professional performing artist” and “transformative mediator,” according to her LinkedIn page.
On March 30, Cochva was attacked with a protest placard during an anti-Israel rally in Times Square and got a black eye as a result.
The post Miss Israel Gets Threatened by Knife-Wielding Antisemite While Talking to New Yorkers About Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump, Democrats, Israeli Officials Slam Biden for ‘Aiding Hamas’ With Threat to Halt Weapons
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, US, April 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
US President Joe Biden’s threat to halt arms shipments to Israel if it proceeds with a planned military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah has drawn furious pushback from both US and Israeli officials, who charged the American president with helping the Hamas terror group.
In characteristically caustic terms, former President Donald Trump — who is running against Biden in this year’s US presidential election — accused the incumbent of siding with Hamas.
“Crooked Joe is taking the side of these terrorists just like he has sided with the Radical Mobs taking over our college campuses, because his donors are funding them,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“What Biden is doing with respect to Israel is disgraceful,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee added on Thursday, while entering a New York courthouse for his criminal trial over hush money payments. “If any Jewish person voted for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves. He’s totally abandoned Israel.”
Biden told CNN in an interview on Wednesday that he had “made it clear that if they [Israel] go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem.”
He added, “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers.”
US lawmakers, including many fellow Democrats, and Israeli officials were quick to condemn Biden’s decision.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) told Axios he suspects Biden was “pandering to the far left” and that the upcoming election was “driving” him.
“I’d like the president to do right by Israel and recognize that the far left is not representative of the rest of the country,” he said.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) added that Israel is “surrounded by danger, they need the tools to defend themselves” and that the US “should fulfill our obligation” by sending the weapons.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) also expressed his opposition to Biden’s threat, saying that the US must “stand with our key ally throughout all of this.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif) accused Biden of “throw[ing] away part of the package” after getting legislation passed in Congress that included about $15 billion in military aid to Israel.
“Biden seems to be communicating his displeasure, and I regard these statements as a communicative act, rather than a strategic act,” he said in remarks to the Jewish Insider.
Within Israel’s ruling coalition, cabinet ministers took turns firing verbal salvos at the Democratic president.
“Israel will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared on X/Twitter. “There is no war more just than this.”
Hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said American opposition would only strengthen Israel’s resolve. “We must continue this war until complete victory, despite the Biden administration’s opposition,” he said.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a fellow hardliner, tweeted that “Hamas [loves] Biden,” using a heart emoji.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to take an implicit shot at Biden’s decision, posting on X/Twitter a portion of his speech at Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust, earlier this week to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Today, we again confront enemies bent on our destruction,” Netanyahu said in the clip. “I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum, will stop Israel from defending itself … If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant similarly did not mention Biden’s remarks directly on Thursday but appeared to issue a message in response to them.
“I turn to Israel’s enemies as well as to our best of friends and say: The State of Israel cannot be subdued, not the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], not the defense establishment, and not the State of Israel. We will stand strong, we will achieve our goals — we will hit Hamas, we will hit Hezbollah, and we will achieve security,” he said at a ceremony to commemorate Israel’s war dead.
The harsh rhetoric laid bare escalating tensions between the Biden administration and Israel’s government over the latter’s conduct during the war in Gaza, which was prompted by a bloody attack on Oct. 7 by Hamas in which 1200 people were murdered and another 252 were taken hostage.
Biden’s warning came amid Israeli preparations for a major offensive into the Rafah area near the Egyptian border with Gaza, in a bid to destroy the last four Hamas battalions and free the 132 Israelis who are thought to be held hostage there. More than 1.2 million Palestinians are currently in Rafah, many of whom were evacuated to humanitarian zones there from the northern Gaza Strip.
Hamas terrorists embed themselves within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeer civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations warned that Biden’s threat would be taken by Israel’s enemies as a signal of impending victory and embolden them further.
“How can we accomplish our goals of destroying Hamas and releasing the hostages if Israel is barred from entering a critical area like Rafah, which is where thousands of terrorists, hostages, and Hamas leadership are?” Gilad Erdan told Israeli broadcaster Kan.
He also warned that Biden’s threat could erode the president’s support among Jewish American voters, and noted that many are “hesitant” after backing Biden in 2020.
US Jewish leaders have also expressed their concern.
American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch said Biden’s remarks as well as his threat were detrimental to the war against Hamas.
“President Biden should not take steps that could impair Israel’s ability to prevent Hamas from attacking it again and again — as its leaders have promised,” he wrote on social media. “The US knows that defeating Hamas is critical to Israel’s long-term security and to defeating the global threat posed by the Iranian regime and its proxies.”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said Biden’s comments were “dangerous and counter to American interest.”
The post Trump, Democrats, Israeli Officials Slam Biden for ‘Aiding Hamas’ With Threat to Halt Weapons first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
