Online Rally Draws Jews from Across the Globe
It’s hard to get a people spread out in a global Diaspora to meet up for a rally, but it becomes a little easier when that rally is held online.
On March 20, visitors to a Web site called Together4Israel.org were able to view a lineup of speakers who gathered electronically to give support to Sderot, the Israeli town that has been the target of steady rocket attacks from Gaza.
Among the big names to speak were Alan Dershowitz, from Sderot; Orthodox pop star Matisyahu, from New York, and actor Jon Voight, from Los Angeles. All of them were broadcast on the site’s live video feed.
Dershowitz, the first major figure to speak, called the residents of Sderot heroes in the vein of “the Jews of Shushan who defeated Haman” and “the men and women who stood bravely in London resisting the Nazi air war.”
The event was not without technical glitches, as time gaps between speakers across the globe stretched into several-minute delays. When that happened, the organizers ran prerecorded segments, including clips from the three major United States presidential hopefuls expressing their solidarity with Sderot.
Together4Israel.org, which invited viewers to “join one million in the largest ever online rally in solidarity with the victims of terror in Sderot,” received a total of about 60,000 hits from participants in more than 20 countries during the rally, according to the event’s organizers.
“We planned it very carefully so that it wouldn’t be in the middle of the night for anyone,” said Ariel Kotler, executive director of the One Family Fund, an organization that serves victims of terror attacks in Israel.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
