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The Upcoming “March for Israel” in Washington, DC – We Must All Be There!!
By: Rabbi Dov Fischer
By now you may have received one or many emails apprising you that next Tuesday, November 14, there will be a HUGE American Jewish assemblage in Washington, D.C. in support of Israel at the National Mall from 1:00 – 3:00 pm EST. In my lifetime, I remember three or so of these D.C. Mass Jewish Demonstrations that have taken place the past half century: two for Soviet Jewry and one for Israel.
On December 6, 1987 250,000 gathered in D.C. for Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jewry. Here is a brief remembrance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGmB84gu_Yo&ab_channel=AmericanJewishCommittee
Every imaginable national and local Jewish organization and congregation is lined up behind this mass event for this coming Tuesday. Organizers expect this will be the definitive public Jewish political mass gathering of this generation. Top-tier politicians and entertainers will be on the program, and the message basically will be that, while American Jews can divide in more ways than an amoeba, right now we all are as one for Israel.
What makes this program even more important is that times have changed in our lifetimes. When I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, every single American Jew was for Israel, no questions asked, and the leftist mainstream media was not too bad either. When quadrennial presidential election season came, it was a given that candidates from both parties would devote their campaign focus in the New York primaries to convincing voters they were strongest on Israel. That was all that matters to New York Jewish voters: Where do you stand on Israel?
A half century has passed. Since 1973, the Reform Judaism movement now calls non-Jews who have a Jewish father “Jewish.” As the definition changed in that part of the non-Orthodox world, it became far more commonplace to find “Jews” who are not gung-ho for Israel because, frankly, they are not Jews even if their Reform rabbis tell them otherwise. Likewise, with other expansions in Jewish assimilation, as America itself has changed, with a “progressive/woke” takeover of campus culture at the colleges, a whole new generation of young Jews has emerged who not only lack the pro-Israel fervor but brazenly lead the Anti-Israel movements. Only a week or two ago, we witnessed the disgrace of a despicable group calling themselves “Jews” and organized under banners like “IfNotNow” and “Jewish Voice for Peace” and other such anti-Zionist apostate groups, marching against Israel in Washington with T-shirts saying “Not in Our Name,” as though they actually are Jews and Israel acts “not in their name.” Their leaders are the anti-Semites in Washington like Rashida Tlaib, Ocasio, and Ilhan Omar. Really, disgusting.
So a question arises: Where exactly do American Jews as a community actually stand? Politicians have learned they will not necessarily get American Jews in certain circles to vote for them by playing to the pro-Israel community, but by staking out certain positions on climate change or abortion or other “general purpose” issues. So there never has been as large a question mark as to whether Israel matters enough to American Jews that it can impact how Jews will vote. If Jews will vote for Bernie Sanders, who allies with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, so what does that mean? Or does it mean anything?
Thus, the turning out of a HUGE Jewish (and Christian and non-religious pro-Zionist) assemblage in Washington next Tuesday matters more than it has in the past. And even more so because many thousands just marched in D.C. for Hamas and an end to Israel. After the anti-Jewish genocide of October 7, there is no in-between position: It is they or we.
It is for that reason, in part, that groups as disparate as the Haredi Agudath Israel o America and the far-left Americans for Peace Now both are urging their members to be there and participate.
Obviously, because of my personal health matter. I cannot be there — a disappointment, because I was at all the prior ones and even was a leader at the two for Soviet Jewry. And also, if facts be facts, I was an East Coaster then, so much closer to D.C. that we could get down there by car or train. Here in California, “my heart is in the east, and I am in the utmost end of the West,” as Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi wrote in his medieval Kinah poem in 13th Century Spain. Still, a great many SoCal Jews will be flying to D.C. next Tuesday, as individuals or with the Jewish Federation or some temples and other groups.
Here are some links:
https://www.marchforisrael.org/
