2,000 pack Times Sq. for Gaza rally

A couple thousand people jammed a busy midtown Manhattan street Tuesday afternoon for a prayer, song and protest rally against Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Organized largely by the Lubavitch youth organization Tzivos Hashem, the rally brought hundreds of Orthodox children from New York-area summer camps to the demonstration, some of them leading the crowd in prayer and declarations of solidarity with the settlers of Gush Katif.

“The land belongs to every Jew who ever lived, and no one has the right to give away even one inch, especially if it puts into danger the lives of other Jews,” one young boy declared from the podium.

Reciting Psalms in shrill and perfervid voices, the young children were cheered on by teenagers and adults standing across the street on Broadway, just south of Times Square. On a sultry workday where businessmen sweated under their suits and women wore thin cover, many of the protestors showed up in orange T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Gush Katif forever” and carrying flags bearing the insignia of Tzivos Hashem, Lubavitch’s Moshiach logo and Camp Gan Israel. Attached to the lone Israeli flag at the protest was a prominent orange ribbon.

“This is amazing,” said Sivan Graydi, an Israeli visiting New York from Rishon Lezion who just happened to be passing by the demonstration. “They’ve taken over in the middle of New York. It’s cool.”

Though she supports Israel’s disengagement plan, Graydi said she also supported the demonstrators.

“I’m for everyone expressing themselves. Why not?” she said. “They believe in it.”

The demonstration was timed to coincide with similar protests against Israel’s planned withdrawal from Gaza in Paris, Melbourne, London and Amsterdam, according to organizers.

At the New York rally, the stage was shared by young kids chanting Biblical verses, hassidic singer Avraham Fried belting out lines like “Gush Katif – You are not alone!” and New York State Assemblyman, Dov Hikind, who reminded the crowd, “Hashem is watching us.”

“Ariel Sharon, shame on you!” Hikind blared, goading the crowd. “Shame on everybody! Shame on you! Louder!”

After he descended from the stage, Hikind, the Brooklyn politician who has been ubiquitous at such protests over the last several months and has organized several solidarity trips to Gaza, said he was outraged by the “insanity” of the Israeli government’s blockade this week of protestors marching in support of Gaza’s settlers.

“Somebody should ask Jimmy Carter to come to the Middle East to observe the behavior of the Israeli government,” he said.

“I just hope one thing: that somebody doesn’t start shooting somebody,” Hikind added. “For Ariel Sharon to be responsible for Jews killing Jews, that would be in his record for all history.”

Behind him, Fried whipped the crowd into a frenzy as bemused and mystified passersby looked on.

Rabbi Reuven Unger, an American-born Israeli, said he came to the protest on his way to the airport, where he was to catch a flight to Israel Tuesday night. He dragged behind him his suitcase and held aloft a cell phone so his wife, who was babysitting children in Talmon, on the West Bank, could hear the noise of the rally. Unger said his older children spent the day at rallies for Gush Katif in Kfar Maimon, in southern Israel.

“Just as my father, Rabbi Andre Unger, marched in the South against discrimination against blacks in the 1960s,” he said, “there’s no reason his son and grandchildren and daughter-in-law should not fight for the right for Jews to live wherever they want, including the Land of Israel.”