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NYC’s Celebrate Israel Parade set to draw big crowds — and protests — amid Israel’s political turmoil
(New York Jewish Week) — For the first time in a dozen years, Ameinu, the former Labor Zionist Alliance, will be marching in the Celebrate Israel Parade, the annual gathering that draws tens of thousands of marchers and spectators along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue.
“It was becoming harder to identify with the overall vibe of the march,” Kenneth Bob, the national president of the liberal organization, said about why the group stopped participating. “It didn’t reflect our more nuanced values about Israel. And because of restrictions on what we could put on our signs, it made it difficult for us to express our brand of Zionism.”
But this year, Ameinu will be back, wearing T-shirts that read in Hebrew on the front, “Zionism = Democracy,” and on the back in English, “Marching for Democracy.” At a time of turmoil in Israel, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis are taking to the streets in protest of efforts by Israel’s right-wing government to transform its judiciary, Ameinu’s participation — and objections voiced by at least one pro-Israel activist group — are signs of the political currents swirling around the largest Zionist solidarity event outside of Israel.
“We will be reminding other participants and those watching the parade that we are marching in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel and around the world who are fighting for the future of the state,” the organization said on its website.
Despite or perhaps because of those political currents, Jewish organizations across the political spectrum are gearing up for what organizers say will be one of the largest Celebrate Israel parades ever on Sunday, June 4, to mark Israel’s 75th birthday. Several groups are marching for the first time, and Long Island has the most marchers in a decade.
Organizers says more than 40,000 people are expected to march — some in sympathy with the Israeli protesters, others who support the government’s proposed overhaul, and still others who say the 75th anniversary of the Jewish state should be an occasion for Jewish solidarity no matter who heads its government or the policies they promote.
To underscore that last message, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, the parade’s sponsor, generated, for the second year, a letter signed by area rabbis from all denominations urging participation in the parade.
“Events like the parade bridge the divide between us, whether political, religious, or cultural,” the letter reads. “It’s a chance for us to gather as Jews and walk together, showing the world that we are one community even when we disagree.”
Plans by Israel’s acting consul general in New York, Israel Nitzan, may test that proposition. Nitzan will lead an Israeli delegation of as many as 18 cabinet ministers and other Knesset members, which would be the most ever to attend the parade. They include the minister of economy and industry, Nir Barkat, and the minister of Diaspora affairs, Amichai Chikli, as well as Simcha Rothman, the chair of the law and justice committee who is an architect of the judicial reforms and has been pressing the case for them with U.S. Jews. The two most controversial members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, the far-right ideologues Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, are not scheduled to attend.
Israeli New Yorkers who have been protesting the government’s judicial overhaul plans have already objected to the government officials’ inclusion. Shany Granot-Lubaton, the organizer of the UnXeptable-Saving Israeli Democracy activist group, said they expect more than 400 of their supporters to follow the Israeli ministers and Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset for the far-right Religious Zionist Party, as they travel throughout the city in the coming days for the parade and a conference the same day organized by the nationalist news agency Arutz Sheva.
UnXeptable issued an open letter urging the organizers “to refrain from allowing Israeli government ministers to march at the head of the parade,” saying the lawmakers “have not earned the respect of your allies and friends in Israel, and many of your own community members, here in America.”
“They will not have a peaceful vacation in New York City,” Granot-Lubaton told the New York Jewish Week. “We served our time in the army and are fighting for Israel because we love it and care for it and not for any other reason. Nobody loves Israel more than us.”
Protesters attend a massive demonstration against proposed judicial reforms in front of the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, Feb. 13, 2023. (Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Rabbi Rachel Ain, the rabbi of the Conservative Sutton Place Synagogue, was one of the 15 rabbis who signed the letter urging participation in the parade. Her synagogue has presented programs to explain the complexities of the political struggle in Israel today, but she said the unrest has “not affected our support for Israel; my synagogue is happy to participate in the parade.”
Ain added, “You can love and support the Jewish state and also understand that things are complicated.”
Ammiel Hirsch, rabbi of the Reform Stephen Wise Free Synagogue and former head of ARZA, the Reform movement’s Zionist organization, also signed the statement.
“It is more important than ever to participate in the Celebrate Israel Parade because it represents our commitment not to elements of this government but to our relationship with the people, the state of Israel, and the Zionist ideal,” said Hirsch. “The best response is not to walk away but to double down with those in Israel who are as distressed as we are and want to see a more representative Israeli government.”
The parade has received an endorsement from Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who in March warned that political divides in Israel could lead to “a real civil war.”
The parade, he said in a video message shared by the JCRC, “promises to be a powerful reminder of everything that holds us together as one proud people. … I marched myself as a student in Ramaz [High School] and it was a terrific experience.”
The largest funder of the parade is UJA-Federation of New York, which contributes $200,000. (UJA-Federation is also a funder of 70 Faces Media, the New York Jewish Week’s parent company.) This year for the first time it is contributing an additional $75,000 to sponsor a Celebrate Israel “Block Party” on 63rd Street that will run during the day. Vendors will sell kosher food, and there will be Jewish and Israeli crafts and various children’s activities.
There will be participation from “every part of the Jewish community,” according to Howard Pollack, director of the parade. “I’ve been getting emails from people asking how they can march and where can they sit to enjoy the parade. The enthusiasm is like nothing I have ever seen before. We normally have groups from out-of-state, but this year for the 75th anniversary, we have a lot more. They are coming from Florida, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and Connecticut.”
The parade will include 20 floats, 13 marching bands and the same number of dance groups. Musicians Matisyahu, the Maccabeats and Harel Skaat will each be performing from different floats.
Mindy Perlmutter, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council-Long island, said 22 groups with about 500 marchers will take part under the JCRC-LI banner — what she called the largest number in at least a decade.
Ameinu will be marching under the banner of the American Zionist Movement. They are among about a dozen of AZM’s 41 affiliated organizations, including Hadassah and Young Judaea, that will be marching together. Other affiliates will march under their own banners, according to Herbert Block, AZM’s executive director.
A contingent on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue during the Celebrate Israel Parade, June 2, 2019. (Courtesy JCRC-NY)
Also marching under the AZM banner for the first time will be the Baltimore Zionist District, which heeded the AZM’s call for members to make a special effort to join the parade to celebrate Israel’s 75th birthday. Also coming for the first time will be representatives from the Druze Zionist Organization in Israel, representing a non-Jewish minority living primarily in Israel’s north.
“There will be one or two from Israel and a couple who live in New York,” Block said. “They will march with the Druze flag in our contingent.”
Members of the Givati Brigade Association, which supports the elite unit of the Israel Defense Forces, will also marching for the first time. Some members of the unit were among the hundreds of Israeli reservists who announced they would boycott reserve duty before the judicial reforms were suspended this spring.
“We hope people will understand how important it is to support not only the Givati Brigade but the IDF in general,” said Itzhak Levit, chair of the GBA. “The Givati Brigade has been involved in all military operations since 1948. Former members of the brigade who live in New York will join us in the parade; we expect around 25.”
Over the decades some have noted that the parade, launched in 1964, gradually drew less grassroots support than it did large contingents of children bused in from various Jewish day schools. And there have been political disputes: In 2015, in addition to guidelines saying that all groups marching must “recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” parade organizers banned groups that advocate for the boycott against Israel. A decade ago there were calls from the right to ban the New Israel Fund and other left-wing groups from marching. And in 2012, LGBTQ Jews marched for the first time under the banner of Manhattan’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, after decades in which LGBTQ Jews were prevented from marching with signage identifying them as gay and lesbian.
Gideon Taylor, CEO of JCRC-NY, the UJA-Federation agency that runs the parade, said there were no new guidelines issued this year concerning the unrest in Israel or any other topic.
The parade has also attracted small groups of pro-Palestinian protesters, as well as a small contingent from Neturei Karta, the anti-Zionist Hasidic sect.
Kenneth Bob, the Ameinu president, told the New York Jewish Week that this “is an important year to be marching. Israel is celebrating its 75th birthday and with all that is going on in Israel we thought this is the time to march for Israel and in support of the protestors. Once we came up with the idea to combine our love for Israel with support for the demonstrators [in Israel], it was a quick and easy decision to decide to march; it’s a good fit for us.”
The Celebrate Israel Parade kicks off on Sunday, June 4, at 11:30 a.m. at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street and will march to 74th Street. The Celebrate Israel Block Party will take place on 63rd Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues from 11 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The parade will be televised on Channel 9 in New York and livestreamed on the website celebrateisraelny.org.
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John Lithgow wins Tony Award for portraying Roald Dahl in ‘Giant,’ about Roald Dahl’s antisemitism
(JTA) — The actor John Lithgow won his third Tony Award on Sunday for his depiction of the writer Roald Dahl as an antisemite.
Lithgow stars as Dahl in “Giant,” which opened on Broadway in March. The play, which originated in London in 2024, depicts ultimately unsuccessful efforts to get Dahl to rein in antisemitic comments he made about the 1982 Israel-Lebanon war.
Lithgow’s award for best leading actor in a play recognized what he has said was an effort to portray Dahl as emotionally complex, a man who had suffered grave losses and was kind to those close to him yet baldly antisemitic in his criticisms of Israel.
“Who knows where antisemitism or any bigotry comes from. In playing the role, I just looked for the damage,” Lithgow said during a March appearance on a New Yorker podcast. “To me, a person who suffered injury or carries demons, it just manifests itself in hatred of the other.”
Accepting the award, which made him, at 80, the oldest man to win a competitive Tony, Lithgow did not mention antisemitism or Dahl specifically but said, “It’s a play about cruelty in a cruel age.” He also shouted out the play’s Jewish author, Mark Rosenblatt.
Meanwhile, multiple awards went to Jewish performers during the 79th Annual Tony Awards on Sunday, which was hosted at Radio City Music Hall in New York City by P!nk, the rock musician who has spoken publicly and with pride about her identity as a Jewish mother.
Caissie Levy won best performance for a leading actress for her appearance in “Ragtime.” Levy, who has gained renown for playing a number of Jewish roles, plays a non-Jewish character, Mother, in “Ragtime,” the revival of the musical based on E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 book portraying ties between a Black musician and Jewish immigrants in early-20th-century New York.
Alden Ehrenreich, the Jewish actor whose big break came when Stephen Spielberg saw the video he made for a friend’s bar mitzvah in Los Angeles, won best performance for a featured actor for his role in “Becky Shaw.”
Shoshana Bean, who performed “Sabbath Prayer” from “Fiddler on the Roof” at last year’s record-setting Shabbat dinner in New York City, won best performance for a featured actress in “The Lost Boys,” about a family that gets enmeshed with vampires.
And Bess Wohl, who was not raised Jewish but is raising her children Jewish, won best play for “Liberation,” which portrays a women’s consciousness-raising group in the 1970s. The play includes a Jewish character whom Wohl has said was inspired by the many Jewish figures in the women’s liberation movement.
The ceremony also featured one pro-Palestinian demonstration, a recent hallmark of awards shows. Ali Louis Bourzgui, who won featured best actor in a musical for his performance in “The Lost Boys,” said the fantastical vampires in his show offer a lens to interpret real-life dynamics.
“Vampires represent those who have shunned their own humanity in order to achieve a non-existent sense of superiority,” he said, offering as an example: “The colonizers will never find fulfillment from the land and lives they steal.”
Bourzgui drew loud cheers as he included among the groups to which he dedicated the prize “the people of Palestine who deserve to live a fruitful life, a free life, a full life without occupation” and “Arab theatermakers and artists … so our humanity becomes undeniable, and our families can no longer be written off as merely collateral damage.” Bourzgui’s father is Moroccan.
Meanwhile, a pioneering performer who is also a prominent critic of Israel also made history at the awards. Qween Jean, a cofounder of the Black Trans Liberation Movement, drew criticism after saying at a pro-Palestinian rally in early 2024 while excoriating Democratic politicians, “We are sick and tired of being told and reminded of the events of October 7.” On Sunday, Qween Jean became the first trans performer to win a Tony, nabbing one for best costume design for a musical for “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Trump urges Iran to make a deal after Iran fires missiles at Israel for first time in 2 months
(JTA) — Iran fired multiple barrages of missiles toward northern Israel on Sunday night local time, in the first direct fire from Iran on Israel since early April.
No one was immediately reported injured in the barrages, according to Israeli media, and the Israeli military said it shot down all the missiles aimed at the country on Sunday night.
The attack came hours after a stabbing attack by an Israeli Arab on Jews in central Israel killed one person and left several others injured.
The Iran salvo added to the turmoil for Israelis living in the north, who have been under constant fire from Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and upsetting an uneasy quiet in the rest of the country. Schools across Israel will be closed on Monday.
Iranian officials said the barrage was a response to Israel’s strike earlier Sunday on a Hezbollah installation in the suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli army said targeted a command center used to direct attacks on its troops.
Hezbollah last week rejected a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that would have halted Israeli strikes in Beirut, saying that it could not abide by terms that would have required it to exit southern Lebanon.
During a five-week war that Israel and the United States initiated against Iran on Feb. 28, at least two dozen Israelis were killed when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at the country in near-daily barrages. Active hostilities involving Israel ended when U.S. President Donald Trump initiated a ceasefire on April 8. He and Iran have not yet agreed to terms that would permanently end the war.
Trump said he was “not happy about” Israel’s strike in Beirut and signaled that he did not see Iranian barrage as an impediment to a future deal.
“It’s certainly not going to help negotiations,” he told Fox News. “We’re very close. I would say an agreement would be signed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week. And now this takes place.”
Addressing Iran directly, Trump said, “You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond publicly to the Iranian attack on Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner, as Jewish Democrats withhold support
Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner on Tuesday to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most important Senate races this year. But a series of recent domestic violence allegations and controversies surrounding Platner could become a major political problem for the party in its effort to regain control of the Senate.
The controversy extends beyond questions about electability. Jewish Democratic organizations have withheld support from Platner over his past Nazi-linked tattoo, criticism of Israel and rhetoric that some Jewish leaders view as troubling, even as top national Democrats rally behind his candidacy.
The primary was effectively decided weeks ago when former Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign after lagging in polls and struggling to raise money. Mills never formally withdrew from the ballot, leaving open the possibility that some Democrats will use Tuesday’s primary as a protest vote against Platner
The dilemma facing Democrats is unusually stark.
Maine, considered a purple state, is widely viewed as one of the party’s clearest opportunities to flip a Republican-held Senate seat. Collins, 73, is running for a sixth term, though critics argue her image as a political moderate has diminished in recent years. In her last reelection campaign in 2020, Collins defeated her Democratic challenger 51-42. Sara Gideon, who is married to a Jewish lawyer, ran a competitive race and drew support from Maine’s estimated 15,000 Jewish voters and outside Jewish Democratic groups.
The 41-year-old Platner, an oyster farmer and former Marine, appeared to be the kind of insurgent candidate Democrats dream about. He led Mills by a significant margin and consistently ran ahead of Collins in public polling.
But the past two weeks have left Democrats struggling with his candidacy.
Reports about explicit messages sent to women while married and allegations from former partners describing threatening and troubling behavior, along with scrutiny of past online posts, put the Platner campaign on defense.
For Jewish voters, Platner’s rise and the party’s embrace of him were already hard to swallow. Platner faced backlash last year after acknowledging that a black skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest resembled a Nazi symbol. He has since covered it up. In past posts on Reddit, Platner defended a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who impersonated a federal officer at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020.
A New York Times story last week cited an ex-girlfriend who said Platner knew for years that the tattoo on his chest was associated with Nazi imagery, an allegation he has forcefully denied.
Also troubling to Jewish Democrats, Platner has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and suggested the U.S. should cut off all aid to Israel. Last week, Platner accused Collins of taking money from AIPAC and being “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu, and she votes accordingly.”
Halie Soifer, head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in an April interview that her group was not prepared to back Platner. JDCA had endorsed Mills in the primary before she suspended her campaign. On Sunday, Soifer said the group continues to stand by its endorsement of Mills, signaling that voters who remain uneasy about Platner still have the option of casting a vote for the former governor, whose name remains on the ballot.
“If he were running in Jersey, he’d either be thrown off the ballot or buried under the Meadowlands,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat from New Jersey, said on Friday.
Top Democratic strategists told Politico that Platner could face pressure to drop out of the race if Mills receives a significant amount of votes.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., has so far continued to show support for Platner. After meeting with Platner last week in Washington, D.C., Schumer told reporters that defeating Collins remains a top priority for Democrats seeking to reclaim power in the Senate.
The likely result is a question Democrats increasingly cannot avoid: If Platner wins Tuesday as expected, how much longer can national Democrats continue treating him as their standard-bearer and excuse conduct they would condemn in a Republican candidate? Jewish Democratic organizations, having already distanced themselves from Platner, will also have to decide how to respond if he becomes the party’s nominee, as other nominees are also coming under scrutiny for past remarks and associations with antisemitic influencers.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in an interview Sunday on Fox News, was asked whether he’s concerned that his party “has an antisemitism problem,” citing Platner’s rhetoric and that of other Democratic candidates.
Platner is “going to have to speak for himself, and that’s what any candidate, particularly in a high-profile race, is going to be called upon to do,” Jeffries said. He added that the effort to crush antisemitism is an “American issue” and shouldn’t be a partisan issue. “It can’t be a red or blue issue. It’s a red, white, and blue issue.”
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