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Over 290,000 supporters of Israel rallied in Washington, D.C. on November 14 for a March for Israel. Jordan Esrig reports in The New York Sun:
In what may be the largest gathering ever of American Jews, an estimated 290,000 demonstrators rallied on the National Mall on Tuesday in support of the Jewish state. The rally was meant to push back against the tide of antisemitism and pro-Hamas sentiment spreading across elite American college campuses and in some quarters of Congress.
The chief executive of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, William Daroff, an organizer of the rally, tells the Sun that about 290,000 demonstrators were cleared through metal detectors to attend the event. Attendees of the rally also told the Sun that tens of thousands more demonstrators did not have the blue wristbands required to pass through security, and therefore stood in a large general viewing area farther back from the stage.
Politicians in attendance included ranking Democratic and Republican members of both the House and Senate, an envoy from the Biden administration, and ambassadors from several European and Latin American countries. Senator Rosen, who is Jewish, and Senator Lankford, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, led the crowd in a bipartisan prayer for the safety of the Jewish state and a safe return of Jewish hostages being held in Gaza by Hamas.
Other speakers addressing the rally ranged from college students to Hollywood actors describing recent experiences of antisemitism. Rally attendees — including many Christians — said they came to support Israel in its war on Hamas as well as to speak out against the tide of antisemitism in the United States. as well as in Western Europe.
One attendee, Audra Berg, described her motivation as “standing with like-minded people, Jewish and non-Jewish,” in expressing “that it is not okay what is happening in Israel, with the hostages and the levels of antisemitism that have increased in this country since the October 7 attack.” A recent University of Michigan graduate, Ethan Friedman, said it was “inspiring to see the bipartisan congressional support for Israel as well as the love and gratitude expressed by the crowd towards America.”
“Coming to this march,” he said, “was really important for me in order to stand up to the enormous amount of antisemitic hate and abuse my friends are enduring, in the wake of the October 7 terror attack.” Speakers at the rally described feeling isolated as Jews as public sympathy turned against Israel within weeks of October 7.
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