By Gus Saltonstall
A somber crowd of thousands filled Central Park West Monday evening, between 83rd and 85th streets, in a vigil and rally organized by Jewish groups to mark 30 days since the Hamas attack on Israel.
Waving Israeli flags or holding posters of some 240 hostages still held by Hamas, the crowd funneled from Columbus Avenue toward the closed-off Central Park West stretch to take part in the event hosted by several Jewish organizations including the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.
People of all ages entered the barricaded-off area adjacent to the park, chanting “bring them home” and joining together in song.
The UJA Federation vigil & rally for Israel on the Upper West Side this Monday.
Thousands in attendance. pic.twitter.com/TDRnRubLv8
— Gus Saltonstall (@GusSaltonstall) November 6, 2023
“I’m here to support Israel,” said Doron Yemini, who told West Side Rag he was attending his first event connected to the October 7 Hamas attack. “Absolutely horrible,” he added, referring to stories of antisemitic attacks that have taken place across the country over the past month. “It’s terrible. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
At one of the two entrance points to the event on Columbus Avenue and West 84th Street, a group of men stationed themselves with “Free Palestine” and “Anti-Israel is NOT Antisemitism” signs along with a Palestinian flag.
The men chanted loudly and had multiple verbal confrontations with people entering the vigil. In at least one instance, one of the many New York Police Department officers patrolling the event had to pull a man away from the “Free Palestine” group.
There was no other counter-rally, though, and the vigil proceeded peacefully, with many people greeting friends and family as they positioned themselves so they could see the stage and screen set up for speakers.
“Because I’ve been crying for a month, I’ve been crying for a month about the innocent people,” Zahava Fetterman told the Rag, when asked what had brought her to the event. “Our hearts are breaking.”
“This antisemitism is not new,” she added. “If they can recognize you as Jewish, it’s been going on for years.”
The Monday night event was sponsored by the Israeli American Council. the Jewish National Fund the American Zionist Movement, the Jewish Federations of North America, and multiple other local and national Jewish organizations.
Queens resident Seth Goldstein was at the rally holding up a hostage poster with an Israeli flag draped over his back.
“I think it’s despicable,” he said about videos and reports of people tearing down hostage posters displayed on New York City streets. “They’re the same people who are blaming everything on Israel. Most of them, we’re not going to convince them to change their ways.”
At one point, a large group of teenagers carrying a giant Israeli flag made their way to Columbus Avenue and turned uptown to a large cheer.
“Bring-them-home” chants rang out once again on both sides of the avenue.
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“At one of the two entrance points to the event on, Columbus Avenue and West 84th Street, a group of men stationed themselves with “Free Palestine” and “Anti-Israel is NOT Antisemitism” signs along with a Palestinian flag.”
FYI these men in traditional Hasidic garb are members of Neturei Karta, an extreme fringe group that ironically often aligns with extremist Islamists.
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/neturei-karta
Hooray for Neturei Karta! May their courage and moral stand against genocide multiply a thousandfold.
Netirei Karta are so far fringe they no longer qualify as Jewish, if they ever were. It is an old diabolical tactic used by nazis to demonize Jews while impersonating Jews. Hitler went to Hollywood and brazenly hired actors to perform in roles as Jews deriding Jews. Much like the character Norman Finkelstein.
You can express sympathy for Palestinians without aligning with Iran or calling for the destruction of Israel
The NYPD needs to do some actual work to keep protestors and counterprotestors at a safe minimum distance. God forbid there be any serious clashes here. That helps no one but those of evil intent.
Oh give me a break!
Enough already!!!
So sad to see your lack of compassion. Enough of terrorism, antisemitism and hate.
Enough what?
I think what UWS CPW Neighbor is trying to say is: this is not our country’s fight, and should not be our country’s problem.
What about all the Palestinian civilian lives lost? They are being flattened.
Hamas knew that Israel would retaliate against any attack on their country and citizens ( most nations would do the same). So it is Hamas who sent the Palestinians to their slaughter. The rest of the Arab world has never been supportive of the Palestinians-even now it took Egypt a long time to finally admit refugees from Gaza.
War is hell as we used to say in the 70s protesting Viet Nam. That is why people should not start wars. In this case Hamas, proxie terrorist group funded by Iran, started the war. Rightly, the cry should go out to Hamas : release the hostages, nursing infants among them, followed by surrender, and the war would end, Palestinian civilians held as human shields would be free and safe from harm.
They need to vote out Hamas…
We know who bears the responsibility for all the lives lost. It’s not Israel.
This sounds an awful lot like “All Lives Matter” to me. These people are mourning and praying for victims of an attack, peacefully. They are entitled to do so.
Why do you care whether a vigil for victims of the October 7th attack focuses on those victims when every single pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel rallies focuses exclusively on the loss of life in Gaza? Do you go around to pro-Palestinian rallies asking people to remember and lament the loss of life and atrocities committed in Israel? Unless you do, take your whataboutism somewhere else.
So heartbreaking. Happy to see this public display of support for Israel’s right to defend itself …finally. I see this as anti-Hamas, anti-hate, anti-terrrism NOT anti-Palestinian.
This was effectively an anti-ceasefire rally – ergo pro war crimes.
Nice use of American taxpayer dollars to support crimes against humanity. More civilians have been killed in the past month by the IDF than the Russians have managed in Ukraine since February 2022.
Ceasefire Now.
the crime against humanity was committed on October 7th. What followed was exactly what Hamas wanted.
It’s not a war-crime to protect yourself against barbarians that kidnap and kill babies in the most horrific way..it’s self-defense.
Killing 10K civilians is ‘self-defense?’ Has there been any concern about possibly killing the hostages as well?
You can see the actual impact of the bombardments here https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/07/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-maps.html
This is not targeted. It’s mass punishment – which is a war crime per the Geneva Convention.
Ceasefire Now.
Brie:
“Protect”? The IDF didn’t protect on Oct. 7th and now its just collectively punishing civilians in Gaza, who can’t flee even if they wanted to.
I’m sure if they released the hostages they would consider a cease fire but not until that has been done.
The rally focus was “Bring them home” not anti ceasefire.
Do you have any suggestions on having hostages released?
Turn the water and electricity on.
It is really simple. If you care about the children of Gaza release the prisoners. Then we can talk peace.
Crimes against humanity? I assume you are speaking of Hamas. Hamas can release the hostages any time to stop this. And they can stop using their own civilians as shields. But they don’t.
“Crimes against humanity? I assume you are speaking of Hamas. Hamas can release the hostages any time to stop this. ”
Not at all clear that Israel would stop if Hamas released the hostages.
Would you agree to cease fire contingent upon release of hostages?
Because you can’t trust the Hamas, ALL hostages have to be released before a ceasefire is done.
It is difficult for me to understand how pining for and speaking for voiceless hostages (who are held by the terrorists who brutalized them and their families, and who are yet to even be seen by the Red Cross, in spite of many of them being babies, young children, women, elderly, and wounded) is an affront to anyone. Their suffering does not negate the suffering of others, and I can’t imagine anyone here thinks that they should not be released safely or that demands ought not be made to solve their humanitarian crisis. How is pain a zero sum game?
Love to see so many to come out to support this peaceful vigil.
In civilized humane societies (like ours) we must stand for the release of civilian hostages taken from their homes including babies, the handicapped, grandparents, the elderly, women and men. If you are not outraged about what happened on October 7 in Israel, you must look in the mirror and ask why. We would have wanted the world to do the same if 240 children, women, elderly and handicapped were taken from their homes as hostages in USA or say the UWS. We would have declared war on the country doing so immediately. Please be on the side of civilization by demanding that these hostages be released immediately and condemn terrorism.
I attended last night my one criticism of the crowd was how few American flags were on display. We are Americans showing solidarity with Israel, there should have been more of an effort to display the stars and stripes along with the flag of Zion.
It’s the flag of Israel, not Zion.
How many American flags have you seen in pro Ukraine rallies?
Are there any words to bring comfort to the 240 hostages who also endured the savagery from where they were kidnapped? The anti Semitism that is proliferating here and around the world is both shocking and all to familiar to those of us that are just one generation removed from the holocaust.
Would have been nice, as a resident of the area, to have been warned about this massive event in advance. No postings, other than “streets closed Monday,” the day after the marathon, implying this was just for street cleaning. A very poorly planned event for the people who live here. Took me thirty extra minutes to get through one block.
Showing support for Israel on the Upper West Side of New York might make folks feel good but Israel’s actions are losing support around the world and creating new Hamas fighters for generations to come. Massacring thousands of civilians in the name of self-defense will not yield less antisemitism but more of it (as it obviously already has). And it certainly will not result in peace and security for Israel.
So what is it you propose? Israel to sit still and do nothing after Hamas butchering 1400 civilians and taking 240 hostages ? Hamas wanted this and does not care about its Palestinian population. (see the article about wealth of Hamas leaders at 11 billion+ sitting in Qatar) Doing nothing emboldens Iran, Hezbollah, China and others. There was clapping for Hamas the day after October 7 including UN and US congresswoman Tlaib and others. Antisemitism and anti-Israel apparently live on college campuses, congress (Tlaib, Omar …), social media and massive propaganda by Israel/US enemies such as China and Russia, Hamas (proxy of Iran) is doing everything to “NOT” protect Palestinians and the numbers are reported by Hamas ministry(?) Doing nothing means destruction of Israel and killing Jews per the chant “from river to sea….”. and emboldening terrorists, Iran and China.
Talib and Omar did not cheer for Hamas. You are guilty yourself of spreading misinformation and stoking ant Muslim sentiment. Again – opposing bombing Gaza is not semitism – that’s such a lazy response.
I think you have a lazy response since you do not use anything specific. You just use big words stoking anti muslim etc. Nothing that was stated is anti Muslim, it is what has happened. Saying what Hamas did and does is not anti-Muslim. In fact, if they are removed, there is a better chance at peace and better life for the Palestinians. There is plenty of documentation on both Omar and Tlaib votes and making statements calling Hamas actions a “resistance” and almost implying that Israel deserved the butchering that occurred on 10/7. Here is one of Omar’s statements “” …calling for “dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.” Tlaib goes further to repeat “from the river to the sea chant…)” Israel is defending itself from an enemy that has stated wants its destruction of the murdering of all Jews.
Israel should leave the land that belongs to Palestine.
You statement that it belongs to Palestine does not make any sense. Unless you meant Palestinians since there is and never was any Palestine except for when Gaza became Palestinian state. There was a land that was called Palestine that has a history of many rulers and many people living there. There are a lot of confusing and inflammatory language and people repeat or say things not knowing what they are talking about.
Palestine is an old term refers to a land (not necessarily people) that includes for example Jordan today and many different people living there. It originates from the time the Romans who took over and destroyed the Jewish temple, called it Syria Palestina, from the word Philistines. It had a vague meaning of what it included during the 400 years of Ottoman empire before WWI. Then came the British conquering it during the Great War (1914-1918) until 1948 where finally Israel became an independent state. The east of Jordan river (in Eastern Palestine, the land) is current day Jordan and was given by the British to become the kingdom of Jordan in 1946. The territory that is Gaza today was given to Egypt by the British mandate. In the1967 war on Israel, Israel captured West Bank (from Jordan) and Gaza (from Egypt) at that time to clear the borders that were threatening the security of Israel. These are the territories discussed for Palestinian statehood. In 2005 Palestine became a state (for the first time) in Gaza when Israel gave Gaza to create a statehood and hopefully pave the way for 2-state solution including the West Bank. Unfortunately, this did not work well since a year later, Hamas, heavily backed by Iran, was elected with no intention of ever making peace with Israel or to let the Palestinians live in peace.
An actual Massacre occurred on October 7th. What follows is the war planned by Hamas to expose as may Palestinians as possible . They don’t see them as victims, they see them as martyrs to the cause.