Online Rally Draws Jews from Across the Globe

By Marissa Brostoff March 21, 2008

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.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO