Hatikvah on 5th

An estimated 40,000 people, including members of Congress and the Knesset, Israeli ministers, local public officials and former hostages and their families, lined Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue on Sunday as part of the 77th annual Celebrate Israel Day parade.

The event took place amid uncertainty in Israel but also, organizers said, as a chance to unify around the event’s theme of hatikvah, hope, and display Jewish pride.

Students from scores of schools in the metropolitan area were a vigorous presence in the line of march.

“There is a lot to hope for this year. There are still 58 hostages in Gaza,” said Eric Goldstein, the CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, which co-organized the event. “We hope that at the next parade, and sooner, they are all back home.”

Goldstein, who was celebrating a new grandson born in Israel that morning, said that Jews also hope for “a country that is more prosperous and peaceful and that grows and thrives as a Jewish democratic homeland.”

Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the UN, told JNS at the parade that he met with relatives of hostages on Friday. “They came to march with us here today,” Danon said. “I told them, ‘It will happen, but it will be sooner than later’,”

Danon said that he met with Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy for the Middle East, before the latter’s trip to Gulf countries last week. Witkoff has been leading efforts to free the hostages, including Edan Alexander, a dual US and Israeli citizen, who was released last week.

Danon said that “the pressure that we apply today on Hamas” through heavier military operations “can allow something to happen very soon.”

Despite political attacks on the Jewish state, Israel has strong global backing, as evidenced by Yuval Raphael, an Israeli singer and Oct. 7 survivor, coming in second in the Eurovision competition last week, according to Danon.

“It showed that the world is not against us. Maybe some of the heads of government, some of the politicians, they want to advocate against Israel, but the entire world is not against us,” Danon said.

Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of NY, which co-organized the event, told JNS, “We’re not giving up, ever, because resiliency and strength is in our DNA.”

“We are marching for the love and pride that we have in Israel, in our Jewish identity and who we are — that we live in the greatest city, the greatest country in the world, and our solidarity with Israel, which is so central to our Jewish identity,” Treyger said. “We’re marching forward. We’re never going back.”

Under a heavy police presence, parade goers lined Fifth Avenue from East 62nd to East 74th streets, cheering on floats and marchers from dozens of local and national Jewish organizations, synagogues and schools.

Several incidents of anti-Israel harassment were recorded on surrounding streets leading into and out of the parade, but no protests erupted along the route.

Several hostages freed from captivity in Gaza were in attendance, including Israeli-American Keith Siegel.

“People have been sharing their joy that I’ve been released, and it’s very, very moving,” Siegel told JNS. “I appreciate the support from the Trump administration and all of the efforts that they have been doing, all of the achievements that they have accomplished. It’s very, very warming to know that many, many people want the hostages back the same that I do.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and former governor and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo participated in the march, as did other electeds.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer drew some light boos from the audience and departed shortly after speaking. Many of the politicians in attendance declined to talk to reporters and appeared to keep their public remarks apolitical.

Treyger said that “this parade is bigger than any government, bigger than any individual.”

“This is about the Jewish people in a moment of crisis that we will overcome, because we’ve been here before,” he said. “We come here from many different backgrounds, speak many different languages, but when we march on Fifth Avenue, we’re marching as one, one people, one heart, one community, marching forward together. That’s what today is about.”

Freed hostage Eliya Cohen reunited at the parade with Dr. Noa Eliakim-Raz, head of Beilinson Hospital’s departments of internal medicine and of returning hostages and the physician who treated him upon his liberation from Gaza.

“I was deeply moved to meet Eliya, the hero, marching for the return of the 58 hostages still held in captivity in Gaza,” Eliakim-Raz said publicly. “The rehabilitation of the returnees, and of all of us as a people, will not be complete without the return of them all, until the last hostage.”

The Tzabar leadership of Tzofim North America, the branch of the Israeli scout movement, helped open the parade with about 350 campers from area “tribes,” as well as Elinor Bitton Bariach, head of the Shaked tribe from Kfar Aza.

“I am proud to lead this incredible Zionist movement that develops a Jewish-Israeli identity for thousands of young men and women around the world,” said Raz Pearl, chairman of the Global Hebrew Scouts Movement.