Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we interview JSpace Canada Chair Joe Roberts, and feature opinion pieces from Tyler Gregory and Paul Bernstein about yesterday’s March for Israel. Also in this newsletter: Rabbi Seth Winberg, Dr. George Breitberg and Adam Lehman. We’ll start with Tuesday’s march in Washington, D.C.
A pro-Israel crowd estimated to be nearly 300,000 packed the area from the West Front of the U.S. Capitol to the Reflecting Pool for what is being described as the largest such gathering in U.S. history, report eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen and Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch from the scene.
Supporters waved Israeli and American flags by the thousands, and an equal number of signs signaled support for the Jewish state at a fraught moment and drew attention to the hundreds of hostages being held in Gaza.
Speakers, including congressional leaders, high-profile celebrities and the families of those being held hostage in Gaza, took to the stage to voice support for Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, as well as to condemn the subsequent rise of global antisemitism.
Israel supporters came from near and far to Washington for the march, which was planned in just over a week by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The organizers estimated that there were at least 290,000 attendees – a larger turnout than the two largest Jewish community rallies on the National Mall in D.C., during the Second Intifada in 2002 and in support of Soviet Jews in 1987, which drew 100,000 and 250,000, respectively. Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff said that an additional 250,000 people watched the livestream of the rally online.
Buses and planeloads carrying attendees to D.C. were organized by local Jewish federations, schools, synagogues and Jewish community centers, including an estimated 12,000 day school students from across the country, according to Prizmah, the network for Jewish day schools. The historic turnout would have been larger if not for a delegation of 900 people organized by the Jewish Federation of Detroit that was left stranded at Washington’s Dulles Airport after their buses were canceled when the drivers reportedly refused to drive them into the capital, according to a local Federation leader, who alleged that the drivers had deliberately staged a “malicious walk-off.” Some buses chartered by the Israel American Council in New York reported similar issues.
The State Department’s antisemitism envoy, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, told the crowd that the Biden administration “stands shoulder to shoulder against Jew-hatred.”
“Today in America we give antisemitism no sanction, no foothold, no tolerance, not on campus, not in our schools, not in our neighborhoods, not in our streets or the streets of our cities. Not in our government. Nowhere. Not now, not ever,” Lipstadt said.
Read the full report here.
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