Across the US, groups of American Jews and pro-Israel advocates traveling to Washington, DC for a massive rally on Tuesday organized to show support for Israel and denounce antisemitism were left stranded as chartered buses either refused to transport them or never showed up.

US Jewish groups organized the “March for Israel” to demand the release of hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza and to demonstrate support for both the Jewish state and the Jewish community amid a global surge in antisemitism that has followed the Palestinian terror group’s Oct 7. massacre across southern Israel.

Tuesday’s rally was both the largest ever pro-Israel gathering and the largest Jewish gathering in US history, with nearly 300,000 people attending, according to event organizers.

However, large numbers of people traveling to attend the rally either could not show up or were forced to scramble last second and final alternative transportation due to multiple instances nationwide of buses not driving them.

Hundreds of American Jews from Detroit, for example, were left stranded at Dulles Airport in Virginia after drivers of chartered buses refused to transport them to nearby Washington, DC, according to multiple reports.

“I’ve been on the airplane unable to de-board because the bus drivers refuse to pick up Jews from the tarmac,” one hopeful marcher — who was one of 900 passengers signed up by the Jewish Federation of Detroit to attend the event — said in a post published on Instagram. “Imagine this was the other way around, and drivers wouldn’t pick up Muslims. It would be a hate crime.”

According to pro-Israel social media accounts monitoring the situation, the bus drivers had staged a “mass sick out” after learning that their passengers were going to a rally in support of the Jewish state. The Algemeiner was unable to independently confirm that claim.

Meanwhile, VINnews reported that the plight of the passengers was made all the worse because their flights, charted specifically for the DC rally, did not pass through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening, thereby preventing the activists from waiting inside the airport terminal. Eventually, they were turned away and sent home.

Michigan State Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Democrat, was among those who traveled to Washington on one of the chartered planes that he said arrived at Dulles Airport on Tuesday morning. He told the Detroit News that his group waited hours to deplane before loading onto a bus and sat there for several minutes before unloading and getting back on the airplane. The group sat on the plane all afternoon and never made it to the rally.

“I’m still awaiting all of the details of why the bus drivers didn’t show up,” Moss said, expressing disappointment about not being able to attend the historic event in the nation’s capital.

“I’ve spent my tenure in the Legislature fighting discrimination when seeking goods or services that are denied based on identity or affiliation,” he added. “There are a lot of questions and we deserve to know the answers.”

A similar incident happened in Westport, Connecticut, where hundreds of people set to take two buses booked with US Coachways to Washington were forced to drive down in 38 cars after the company cancelled their reservations, News 12 Connecticut reported. Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County CEO Carin Savel, whose group organized the trip, said the dispatcher told her there had been a scheduling error and the buses had been canceled.

Jewish and pro-Israel leaders expressed outrage over the inexplicable transportation issues. “To the bus company that refused to transport my local Jewish community off the tarmac at Dulles to the DC March for Israel rally: You’re about to find out,” tweeted Adar Rubin, Director of Mobilization at End Jew Hatred, an antisemitism watchdog.

Amid a historic surge in antisemitism since the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel, critics have alleged the transportation issues were meant to sabotage the “March for Israel,” where hundreds of thousands of Jewish Americans and pro-Israel advocates packed the National Mall in a historic show of solidarity with the Jewish state amid its war with Hamas.

Speakers at the rally included the famed human rights activist Natan Sharansky, US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who appeared via live feed, among many other voices.

College students were also represented among the day’s speakers.

“Our spirit is unbroken,” George Washington University student Sabrina Soffer said during a speech delivered before the massive crowd. “Nothing at all can splinter the Jewish soul. The Jewish soul, the American resolve, allied together shall never surrender values of civilization, democracy, and humanity.”

The marchers, who traveled from across the US, represented a full spectrum of the Jewish community and its allies. As one participant told The Algemeiner, it was an important display of unity and the peaceful intentions of the Jewish people.

“I think it’s beautiful. It just shows that we are in peace, that we come in peace, and we’re not interested in violence, and on the contrary we’re fighting that in the world and all antisemitism and hatred of all kinds,” said Beverly Mehl, from New York. “It’s very important to show strength, to do something and take action.”

The scale and success of the “March for Israel” was striking given that it was organized in just a matter of weeks. Natan Sharansky, the famed refusenik and international campaigner against antisemitism, highlighted the pressing need for a mass pro-Israel rally in a recent article for Tablet magazine and drew a comparison with marches in 1987 attended by hundreds of thousands to support Soviet Jewry.

“Immediately after the [Oct. 7] attack we found that all of us were being attacked, and so the world Jewry is feeling like one family, supporting one another, because I hear from so many who say they never imagined that they would be afraid in their countries,” Sharansky told The Algemeiner ahead of the demonstration. “We all have to rally quickly to turn into one fighting family, and I think that’s what Jews are doing now and why this demonstration is happening.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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