Israel Day Parade 2009 - The Jewish Standard

I went to the Israel Day Parade in New York today. I did not intend to march. I really didn’t. I went for the sole purpose of interviewing Noam Shalit, father of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and then I was going to just watch from the sidelines.

Well, after I interviewed Shalit (an ordeal in itself since he was not where I was told he would be) I was wandering around the streets looking at the different groups getting ready to march (Two pictures caught my eye in particular. The ShopRite float had logos from different kosher companies – including Rubashkin. Oops. So much for new floats each year. And secondly, I don’t recall the company offhand but an Israeli company that makes frozen falafel and other delicacies apparently makes a falafel filled with tahina. That’s right, the tahina is inside the falafel. Could somebody have invented anything more intelligent and theoretically delicious than that? I don’t think so.) and looking for UJA Federation of Northern New Jersey to at least say hello.

And I ended up marching with them. I kept saying, “I’m only here until I see some people along the sidelines and then I’ll go hang out with them.” Well, I ran into three groups of people but I kept marching – all the way to end. We started out at 53rd Street and ended up at 81st. You do the math. That was a lot of walking.

There were murmurs of a concert somewhere in Central Park afterward. Nobody seemed to know exactly where, though, and it was starting to rain so I did meet up with a friend and we went for pizza and much needed rehydration.

I have lots of pictures, which I will upload to The Jewish Standard’s Facebook page. That’s right, we have a Facebook page. You too can become a fan of The Jewish Standard. It’s really awesome and all the cool kids are doing it. You want to be cool, don’t you? Just search for The Jewish Standard next time you’re on Facebook and become a fan.

If you have any pictures from the parade of northern New Jersey denizens, please send them along to us and we will try to print as many as we can in the coming issue. You can e-mail them to pr@Jewishmediagroup.com.

Stay tuned for my interview with Noam Shalit.

The Big Lipowsky

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