After a wrong turn in Brooklyn, a bus of rally-goers makes it to the National Mall
Congregants from Brooklyn’s Congregation Beth Elohim at Tuesday’s March for Israel in Washington, D.C. Photo by Camillo Barone
By Camillo Barone November 14, 2023
The bus filled with congregants from the Brooklyn synagogue Congregation Beth Elohim showed up to Tuesday’s March for Israel on the National Mall later than they had planned — the driver had taken a few wrong turns and wound up wending his way through the borough for an hour before finding the Verrazano Narrows bridge.
That bus and two others loaded with congregants from several other synagogues formed a small caravan of 150 people who had signed up for the rally on the National Mall, which aimed to support Israel, demand the release of the hostages and combat antisemitism.
The eldest attendee on the first bus was on was Abraham Haspel, an 86-year-old Orthodox Jew born and raised in New York City. He said the emotional pain he has felt since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel is still intense.
“I found some relief in my daily religious practice. But putting that aside, there is a real threat,” he said, referring to rising incidents of antisemitism in Brooklyn, some of which he said he had witnessed.
“We need to do more than just pray. We have to basically demonstrate that we’re united, and that’s the reason for going to Washington today.”
About 200,000 people showed up for the rally, according to its organizers. It was sponsored by two major Jewish umbrella groups — The Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations —which had billed it as a big tent event that would welcome a diversity of views. Much of the four-hour event evoked strong support for Israel as it seeks to destroy Hamas in Gaza. The terrorist organization killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage in an Oct. 7 attack. Since then Israel has killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza, according to Hamas’ health ministry.
‘The complexity of this moment’
At the back of the bus sat Liora Cobin, 47, her daughter Meital, 16, members of Congregation Beth Elohim, as well as a friend of Meital’s from school. Meital made a poster on the bus, bearing a quote from Maimonides that read: “There is no greater mitzvah than the redemption of the captives,” which she would later wave at the rally in D.C.
“A lot of the ceasefire protests in New York felt too hard to be around,” she told me, saying later that she persuaded her mother to attend the rally with her. “It makes me feel better to show up as a supporter of Israel, who also cares about peace, than to not show up. Because if you don’t show up, then you’re not actually standing for anything.”
The group loaded the buses before the sun rose, with Beth Elohim’s rabbis — Rachel Timoner and Stephanie Kolin — taking front row seats. The rest of the passengers were a mix of young and old, couples and families. Many of them fell asleep as the bus pulled away, to awake a few hours later on the New Jersey Turnpike. Beth Elohim is a Reform congregation, known for its progressive take on Judaism. Its congregants sat alongside those from Orthodox and Conservative synagogues who also sent contingents to the rally.
Timoner acknowledged that many going to the rally likely held views different from hers. Some progressive groups of Jews had formed a “peace bloc” before heading to the gathering, which they assumed would be dominantly by more strident pro-Israel voices.
“That’s the complexity of this moment for liberal and progressive Jews and liberal and progressive Zionists, Timoner said, “that we’re going to have a march where we know the people who are speaking from the stage — many of them — do not speak for us.”
And yet “we must show up to show our solidarity with Israel and with Israelis,” she added. “All differences within the Jewish people today cancel each other out in order to bring to the world a common message from all Jews of all religious and cultural orientations, namely that Israel has the right to exist and thrive.”
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