Transcript

Arielle Angel 00:10

Hello, and welcome back to On the Nose, the Jewish Currents podcast. I’m your host, Arielle Angel. Today, we’re going to be talking about the Israel Day Parade. It was on Sunday, May 31st, and if you’re anything like me, your feed was just taken over by pictures from the Israel Parade that were pretty upsetting. I mean, it’s not pleasant anyway, when you know what Israel is doing, to watch thousands of people, many of them children, marching down Fifth Avenue, waving Israeli flags and dancing around. But I feel like this year was particularly grotesque because there were a number of Israeli ministers. That shouldn’t be so strange—it’s an Israel Day Parade—to have officials from the country that your parade is for. But of course, those people are completely reprehensible people, and leading the way was Bezalel Smotrich, who is basically the architect of the looming West Bank annexation. 

AA 01:12

This has caused a lot of issues for the New York politicians who joined the parade. In addition to Governor Kathy Hochul, Senator Chuck Schumer, and Reps. Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler and others, you also have the progressive Attorney General Letitia James, who have now had to make statements distancing themselves from—I mean, mostly Smotrich. They haven’t mentioned all of the other fascists who they marched with. So, we’re going to talk about this dust-up and a lot of the things that have come out—a lot of the discussions that have come out of this Israel Day Parade. To do that, I have two of my colleagues. Senior reporter Alex Kane. Hi, Alex.

Alex Kane 01:57

Hello. Thanks.

AA 01:59

And news director Josh Nathan-Kazis. Hi, Josh.

Josh Nathan-Kazis 02:02

Thanks for having me.

AA 02:03

If you guys are not subscribed to our News Desk newsletter, which Josh and Alex do most of the writing for right now, you should be. This week’s edition featured a lot of writing reporting about the Israel Day Parade, so you should go and check that out. Okay, where do we even start here? I’ll just say emotionally—and I said this already—it was pretty tough to see the images from this parade. I mean, at this point, I feel like there’s so much separation between me and the part of American Jewish identity that is connected to Israel that it’s like, I often don’t feel shame because I don’t feel implicated. But I have to say, there was a particular injury for me watching the Hebron Fund on a float down Fifth Avenue. I did feel a certain way about that, and I did feel some shame.

JNK 02:58

I think part of it is that the JCRC—the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which puts on this parade—works very hard to make it feel and to frame it as like a Jewish parade. I mean, it is called the Israel Day on Fifth Avenue, but all the framing is about how this is a big, diverse group of Jews. I mean, it is the Jewish parade that we have in New York, and so when you are in Jewish spaces in New York City, people go. And so it doesn’t feel like some sort of distant celebration that doesn’t touch us, or that doesn’t touch the people we know. I think part of what was so stunning about this was that it felt very proximate. And then, at the same time, here is Bezalel Smotrich being cheered as he walks down Fifth Avenue.

AK 03:43

I have spent the past six months to a year heavily focused on the transformation in the Democratic Party that has long shown up in terms of grassroots Democratic opinion but has also, this year, really started to show up in politics. In Congress, you had a majority of Democrats vote to block the sale of weapons to Israel. You have a number of left-wing candidates running very hard against the genocide and for a total arms embargo on Israel, winning their primaries or in the lead.

AA 04:19

Adam Hamawy, just last night

AK 04:21

Adam Hamawy, who ran on a total arms embargo for Israel and Palestine—that was one of the top issues that he ran on. It was Palestine and Medicare for All. So, I mean, that’s totally abnormal in American politics. People did not win on Palestine. And so anyway, I’m caught up in this, I’m like: Wow, things are changing. And then, I see the Israel Day parade, and you have the entire Democratic establishment marching. And that is a reality check. Now, it is in part a New York story, but still, given the importance of New York in Democratic politics, it’s a real reality check for just how much work needs to be done to make anti-genocide politics totally mainstream, because it’s not dominant. And so anyway, it was sobering, I guess I should say.

AA 05:02

I think one thing that we want to mention in terms of the electoral politics piece—as many of you know, listening to this, Zohran Mamdani said that he would not attend the parade but that he would ensure its security. And Tisch—his police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who’s from a very big Zionist family—did march in the parade and made it clear in their press conference that Zohran didn’t have anything better to do, he just wasn’t coming to the parade. There were tons of cops, and there was a real kind of “fuck you” attitude to Zohran for not coming, but also, “we don’t want you here, but also, you should be here,” was kind of the vibe.

AK 05:39

I was gonna say, Zohran was riding a bike that morning.

JNK 05:42

A picture that they put on the cover of the New York Post the next day.

AA 05:45

Let’s hear a little bit about: What is this parade, and who marches in it? What’s the makeup of it?

JNK 05:51

I think the most salient thing to say here is that this parade is mostly kids, or at least in large part kids. The Jewish day schools throughout the region send large delegations. So if you go, what you’re actually seeing is mostly large groups of children and their parents. I think that’s an important part of the aesthetics and the political role they’re playing here. And there is language from the organizers about how this is an apolitical parade. In fact, my understanding is that historically, AIPAC and J Street have not been permitted to march, or not been included, because they want to frame this as quote, “apolitical.” It’s a family event of children marching down the street; it is a big part of it.

AA 06:31

I was thinking about this, actually, because it reminded me of the big November 14th March after October 7th—this big support for Israel, pro-war march that took place in DC in November 2023—and the fact that basically, it was billed as this enormous march. I think they said that they had hundreds of thousands on the Mall, but most of those people were schoolchildren. They were busing the schools in, and it’s kind of crazy when you’re padding your numbers with people who actually don’t have the sovereignty to make their own political decisions yet. Like, how much of this is a strategy for filling out the membership in a club where most of the kids just don’t have a choice whether they’re going to be there or not? Not to say that the children aren’t very enthusiastic. I mean, you’re giving them songs to sing, and it’s like a real togetherness thing, but also, they haven’t really been given a choice at this point.

JNK 07:34

Look, I think it runs both ways. It is part of the affirmative curriculum of some of these schools to do Israel advocacy. That’s actually part of the training. So, going is an educational experience; it’s part of the program. So, I think it runs both ways for those institutions. Many years ago, for the Forward, I talked to the guy who founded the parade, who set it up in the first place in 1965. His name is Ted Comet. It’s now run by the JCRC. At the time, this guy, Ted Comet, was the head of the American Zionist Youth Foundation. He said he started in 1965. In 1967, he said it drew 250,000 people, which I’m not sure I believe, actually. That’s an unbelievable number, and it’s like five times what they drew this year, but it does suggest that this has been a major event in the city and in the Jewish community in this city for a long time. I think one interesting thing, talking about that rally immediately after October 7th, is that liberal Zionist groups made a very big effort to take space at that rally, and to show up, and to have their own signs. But I spoke with Rabbi Jill Jacobs yesterday, who runs T’ruah, which is a rabbinic human rights organization, and she says that they did have a progressive bloc within this parade until sometime before the pandemic, and that they don’t actually try to do that anymore. They don’t show up. I think that they felt like they were being used. In fact, what’s been happening—and what the parade actually has been—is really a right-wing celebration. I think the clearest indication of that yesterday was all these settler charities that had floats.

AA 09:11

Yeah. You said something funny in the piece that you wrote yesterday, just about the euphemisms that they’re using to introduce these floats.

JNK 09:19

Right. So there were floats from the Hebron Fund, which is a big settler group, and one from the One Israel Fund. And as the Hebron Fund float is going by, they say: The Hebron Fund supports and strengthens the Jewish community of Hebron by supporting soldiers and local security needs. Which is this crazy string of euphemisms there to describe the actual situation in Hebron.

AA 09:41

Yeah, which is that they’re a small nucleus of settlers who are heavily, heavily armed, where they’ve shut down all the roads and areas around them so that Palestinians cannot walk on them or cross. They have just an extremely militant and extremely violent group of settlers protected by soldiers in the very middle of the city, which they have ethnically cleansed.

JNK 10:06

Which goes back to the political dynamics here, which is that everyone acted like it was this major thing that Smotrich had shown up, and like: How could we all have found after the fact that we were marching with Smotrich? But this parade was not a liberal Zionist parade. This was not a parade that lined up with the expressed politics of many of these Democrats, who you were referring to before, Alex. Although apparently the organizers didn’t know Smotrich would be there, they knew other Israeli political leaders from the far right would be there. So, I think that colors a bit some of these statements from the political leaders trying to distance themselves from this objectionable piece of the parade. I mean, that really was representative of what the parade was.

AK 10:50

Just to put a fine point on it, we’re talking about organizations that are connected to extremely violent settlers. Hebron settlers are known to be the tip of the spear of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. The One Israel Fund, as you noted, Josh, raises money to send security equipment to Israeli settlers all over the West Bank. There’s no vetting. It’s not like they’re like: Well, this settlement is a more mainstream settlement that’s close to the Green Line. It’s every single settlement in the West Bank, and that means that they are implicated in horrific violence that has only escalated, and are complicit in the literal depopulation of Palestinian villages that are being wiped off the map.

AA 11:34

Well, but again, it’s like we’re talking about the most brazen. But then again, you just have Friends of the IDF with the flags of all the combat units of the IDF that have just carried out a genocide.

AK 11:45

Yeah, yeah, it’s one and the same.

AA 11:46

The whole parade is rotten, and even more so now that you don’t have the cover of a kind of progressive face, like a peace-loving, progressive bloc, so to speak. Many people have pointed out in the last couple days that there are many Jewish New Yorkers—and I believe this to be true, even though I think it’s crazy that this should still be the case—who are marching in what they feel is Jewish pride parade to support the dream of Israel and a Jewish safe harbor, and having to confront—or not confront, frankly, it seems like not confront, even though it’s right in front of them—the reality of the State of Israel, which is a fascist, genocidal state. We should talk about some of the other people who were there. It’s not just Smotrich, as we talked about. It’s Yitzhak Wasserlauf—there’s video of him giving a blessing that references Amalek: blessing of the one who seizes babies and dashes them against the rocks. There’s Cabinet Minister Amihai Ben-Eliyahu, who called on starving Gazans and nuking Gazans, and Ariel Kellner, who also advocated for the starvation of Gazans and said that there should be another Nakba. This is the rogue’s gallery.

AK 13:10

I would say that we need to even expand the frame beyond the current political situation, because the responses by the American politicians who were confronted with Smotrich is to say: Well, I’m marching not for the current government of Israel; I’m marching because I believe in a safe haven for Jews. This wasn’t the Netanyahu parade. This was the Israel Day parade. But then, you have to ask: Well, what are you celebrating? Israel was founded on ethnic cleansing. There is no Israel without the Nakba. There is no Israel without the military government that imposed military rule on Palestinian citizens for the first 20 years of the state. So, even if you concede the point that it’s not a pro-Netanyahu march, you’re still celebrating a project of ethnic cleansing.

AA 14:03

During a genocide.

JNK 14:05

What’s interesting about the way that the Jewish establishment has been framing this is that they demand that New York political leaders attend. I quoted in the story this sermon that Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove gave the day before the parade. Cosgrove is a conservative rabbi. He’s the one who said that Mamdani was a security threat or a safety threat to Jewish New Yorkers before the election.

AA 14:26

You’ve heard him on this podcast before, and you’re about to hear his mellifluous voice again.

Elliot Cosgrove 14:31

Tomorrow is a Celebrate Israel parade on Fifth Avenue. If there were ever a moment for a public official to signal that they stand with the Jewish people, tomorrow is it. Barring a cataclysmic personal event, which I wish upon no one, there is no defensible reason why anyone deserving of the Jewish vote would fail to show up on Fifth Avenue tomorrow and post the fact of their attendance on their website and social media for the world to see. A pre-primary, sunny Sunday in Manhattan—it’s rare that the good Lord provides us with such a clear and unambiguous litmus test. Whether you march or not, find out who was there and who wasn’t, and then take that information into the voting booth with you. You don’t need me to tell you who stands with us. By tomorrow night, the candidates will have told you themselves.

JNK 15:34

It is a clear and express demand that all local and state-level politicians show up for a Jewish parade. That is the demand, and then, it’s almost a bait and switch.

AA 15:47

It’s just not a bait and switch. There’s no bait; there’s no switch.

JNK 15:50

Right. Well, the switch is if you focus on Smotrich.

AA 15:53

Well, but we don’t know that they didn’t actually know. Right? So, that’s the first thing.

AK 15:57

Interesting thing about this is that the Israeli media reported, in Hebrew, that Smotrich would be there. He was not on the official list of the delegation. But if you’re a politician, you are not reading Hebrew media.

AA 16:09

Sure, but it sounds like plausible deniability. But by all accounts, you would know that officials from this government, which is the government that is doing the genocide, would be at a parade for their country in New York City.

AK 16:23

Well, yes. Officials, definitely.

JNK 16:25

And you would know that the liberal Zionists don’t show up anymore. I mean, someone who is connected to the Jewish community would know that. And you would know that the Hebron Fund was going to be there. And then, in the fallout, once everybody gets angry about Smotrich in particular, the statements that they put out are exclusively about Smotrich and ignoring the fuller context of what this parade really was.

AA 16:45

Well, and as Alex pointed out, the comments themselves are so weird.

AK 16:51

Letitia James, who is a progressive, but she’s also part of the Democratic mainstream establishment—she kind of bridges the gaps between progressives and the establishment, and she famously endorsed Mamdani and really helped Mamdani with Black voters during the primary. I mean, she hates Cuomo. But anyway, to get back to the point, Tish James, after the Smotrich presence became an issue of controversy, she released a statement in which she said: I detest Islamophobia. Islamophobia has no place in New York City, and Smotrich is an Islamophobe. That was her comment, and it’s just a really weird framing for talking about what Smotrich is doing.

JNK 17:33

I mean, it’s a careful framing. She’s actually not talking about what he’s doing.

AA 17:37

Well, it’s not just Tish James, by the way. Almost all of the statements—the distancing statements—talk about Smotrich’s hateful rhetoric. This is a guy who’s responsible for the active depopulation and violence in the West Bank right now. You know, it’s like saying Hitler’s antisemitic rhetoric needs to be condemned. Obviously, rhetoric is bad, but there are things that are happening. There are real things that are happening. There have been dozens of depopulated villages this year, thousands and thousands of people depopulated by violence.

AK 18:10

The ICC prosecutor has requested an arrest warrant against Smotrich.

AA 18:16

Yes, he’s requested one; it has not been issued. So, that is one mechanism that doesn’t exist to arrest Smotrich. I think that’s important because a lot of the rhetoric on left Twitter was like: Mamdani the traitor has not arrested Smotrich. I asked Jake Romm from the Hind Rajab Foundation, who has been pioneering—it’s called universal jurisdiction, and it allows federal governments in different countries to arrest soldiers or to arrest Israelis who have participated in the genocide on the principle of universal jurisdiction, that there are some crimes that are so bad that any government can arrest you for them. I asked him if Mamdani would be able to make an arrest according to this principle, and he said no because it is a federal statute. It’s the War Crimes Act, which is a federal law, which means that people at the mayoral level can’t really apply that law. But what he did say is that there is a responsibility basically for people in local government to be using their platforms to call for the federal government to arrest these people. Obviously, in this case, it would be very difficult, but at least giving light to the fact that this is something that is possible—that the War Crimes Act allows for this—and to be bringing some pressure to that. So, that’s kind of what’s available to our local government officials, would be to call for the federal government to call for their arrest under the War Crimes Act.

AK 19:46

And just to say, there is an ICC warrant issued for Netanyahu. But even if Netanyahu comes to New York City—I know Mamdani has said on the campaign trail he would try to arrest him—I don’t think that can actually happen. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t think that can actually happen. I don’t think the NYPD can enforce an ICC warrant.

JNK 20:04

Also, the U.S. is not party to the ICC treaty.

AA 20:07

Yeah. I don’t think Mamdani actually has that power. And clearly, the will without the power doesn’t really matter. We’re still kind of on the electoral piece of this, I think. Brad Lander is, obviously, already using it as a kind of wedge between him and Goldman. Brad Lander did not go to the Israel Day Parade. Goldman did, and Goldman now is in a position where he has to actually answer for that, considering the progressive constituency and the distaste for the likes of Smotrich et al. in that constituency.

AK 20:42

Yeah, it’s a bit of a split-screen electoral situation. I have to remind myself that we have a mayor who is unabashedly pro-Palestinian, and he boycotted the Israel parade for political reasons. The most powerful official in the city. That is huge. And so, I just want to acknowledge that.

AA 21:02

He’s the first mayor in the parade’s history who has skipped it.

JNK 21:07

And at least two former mayors attended this past weekend.

AA 21:10

Mayor Adams and Bloomberg.

AK 21:12

And we should say Mayor Adams literally marched with Smotrich, side by side. They were holding the same banner.

JNK 21:19

But for the current political officials—for the governor and the attorney general—I suspect that they are not happy with the JCRC right now or the Jewish establishment writ large. On the very surface level on which these politics play out, this was bad for them. They had to spend time, and energy, and political capital fixing problems that this created, and I suspect the next time that the Federation asks them for something or the JCRC asks them for something, this becomes part of the calculus. I think that it was not good for the political efforts of an embattled Jewish establishment in New York City,  which is right now trying to rebuild its power after a significant loss last fall. They’re in the midst of a very tense fight. They’re the proxy war between the City Council Speaker Julie Menon, who’s a close ally of Jewish establishment groups, and Mamdani, who is an opponent. This is all very present and very tense, and they need all the friends they can get, and this was not helpful. It’s not going to rupture relationships, but I can’t imagine that the staff of the governor, and the attorney general, and all these people who had their principals show up on Sunday are very happy right now.

AA 22:29

Can we just talk about Schumer for a minute? He is the fucking worst. He gave a speech at the Israel Day Parade. I mean, look, on the one hand, it’s like the most basic milquetoast speech, but I cannot deal with one more speech that’s just like: Jews are going to be massacred in the United States, basically, and that’s why we need Israel. It’s like, you are in the government of the state that you’re talking about. If you think that we are in danger, then you should do something about it that’s not telling us that we need somewhere else to live. You are the most powerful Democrat in Congress. If you think that we are this close to being massacred, then you’re not doing your job. It shows such a profound lack of hope or faith in your own governmental system, in your own country. And maybe that’s appropriate. I feel that way. It’s not like I have trust in states or whatever, but I’m not like the minority leader or whatever. It’s just kind of astounding.

JNK 23:30

It also just felt like he’s been saying the same thing for 50 years. And listening to him next to someone like Lander, who is a generation younger but from the exact same neighborhood and very similar political base, I think is interesting and speaks to some of the changes that Alex was talking about at the beginning of this conversation.

AK 23:50

Yeah, I mean, Schumer, on a political level, he’s not fully resisting the change. He got behind Graham Platner, but on a rhetorical, and personal, and ideological level, he is stuck in a very post-1967 moment, where Israel must be protected, where it’s a small, vulnerable state, where it’s a Jewish safe haven, and as such, needs to be protected, and is totally out of step with the future of the party. Schumer is getting up there in age, and I don’t actually expect him to run in 2028. But the other younger leaders that do want futures in politics, like Kathy Hochul and Tish James, are making also an interesting calculation that this is a politics that is still beneficial to them when the base of the party, and particularly in New York, has totally transformed. I think that’s maybe also a consequence of coming up in New York politics at a time when Israel was a consensus issue and forging lots of relationships with politicians and Jewish communal officials that reinforced that. But the politics that the parade represents is going to be a liability for them that they are going to have to fend off, and showing up at the parade is an indication that they are not meeting the political moment that they will have to confront in the coming years.

JNK 25:18

Maybe the way in which this became a political disaster pushes things in that direction. Maybe it creates some of the institutional and personal ruptures that push people in that direction.

AA 25:29

So obviously, many of us and many of our listeners were disgusted with this parade. But it’s kind of notable that there is not a movement within our organizations to protest them. I noticed that Nerdeen Kiswani, who is the head of Within Our Lifetime—she was recently targeted for a plot against her life by a kind of subset of the reviving JDL—she wrote on Twitter: “A few years ago, I helped organize protests against the Israel Day Parade and feared for my life. Today, with an infant and after being the target of a recent assassination plot, I can’t take that risk. What’s hard to understand is how so many organizations with far more resources, security, and capacity were nowhere to be found.” Especially if you follow Nerdeen, it’s very clear that this is a subtweet of the JVP, IfNotNow, whatever, Jewish, anti-Zionist infrastructure. And so, I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Basically, what I saw is that the only real protesters were Neturei Karta, who are the sect of Hasidism who opposed Zionism for theological reasons and now moral reasons, who show up to basically everything, no matter how big or small. I mean, they’re just always there.

AK 26:50

There was also Israelis for Peace, which is a local group of Israelis in New York that hosted a weekly vigil in Manhattan during the genocide, calling for both the end of the genocide and the release of hostages. Brad Lander went to many of their vigils. It’s an anti-war, Israeli-led group, and they protested with signs that read, like, “fuck Ben-Gvir,” and “this Israeli government belongs in the Hague, not in New York City.” So, it was a small crowd of Israelis there protesting.

AA 27:22

But obviously, that would look a lot different if that was JVP. And so, Alex, I’m curious if you have any thoughts about this; if you have a theory as to why this isn’t happening, or like, whether it would be effective to do it.

AK 27:36

I haven’t checked in with folks in JFREJ or JDP to get their response, so I’m guessing a little bit. I think Nerdeen—it’s not an unfair point. I think from the Jewish left’s perspective, one is like: What would a protest actually look like, and I think it would actually not look like the Jewish left has strength or power compared to tens of thousands of people, and the NYPD would police them really heavily. They would be behind barricades. There would only be—how many people are you going to get for a protest of the Israel Day Parade on a Sunday afternoon in late spring?

AA 28:15

You don’t think it would project strength?

AK 28:17

No.

JNK 28:18

I will say they have done it before. I was just this morning reading an article that I wrote in June of 2017 about this. IfNotNow and JVP had 100 people who protested the parade. There were a handful of arrests, seven arrests. 100 people. They had a banner, and they did block the march at some points.

AA 28:35

I mean, basically, that would be the only thing that they could do is block the march. But I think that in 2017, that was also the time that JVP did a disruption at the parade, which stopped in front of—it was queer members of JVP that got out in front of the queer delegation at the then-called The Celebrate Israel Parade, I think, and shut it down, stopped the parade at that spot. It was kind of a “no pride in apartheid” kind of thing. And there was a huge backlash against them because the group that they got in front of was this group called Keshet. A lot of the argument that people were saying was that queer groups were not really allowed to march in that parade, and they had only recently gotten permission to do so, if I recall correctly. Also, a lot of the people in that organization were Orthodox people who came out, and so there was all of this backlash about targeting, particularly, the most vulnerable people in the Israel Day Parade, who were these queer members. The optics of that didn’t really work out for them, and it makes me wonder if some of the reason that Jewish groups are not doing this is because of exactly what you said in the beginning, Josh, that so many of the people in the parade are children, and the optics of protesting all of these children is not amazing. 

AA 30:34

Now, that said, why not get in front of the Israeli delegation? Or why not try to shadow them or whatever? That feels clear and unambiguous, but it also does seem like really thankless work. If I had to guess why it isn’t happening in the same way anymore, I would guess that it’s because it doesn’t feel actually material. It feels symbolic. I think it’s interesting because when Jewish groups were protesting outside of federations or whatever, there was a lot of ridicule that was like: This is pointless. These groups don’t care, and this isn’t even material, and these are stunts to get arrested in front of JNF offices or whatever, but what is this actually doing? And now that Jewish groups are like: You know what? Those were stunts. They don’t care what we think. We actually need to shift our organizing strategy to something that’s more material—there’s complaints that Jewish groups don’t protest those places anymore, that the Jewish groups don’t go directly to Jewish institutions and protest them. And so, there is a little bit of “a damned if you do, or damned if you don’t.” I do think that it would probably be worth it, that it would probably feel heartening for anti-Zionist Jews across the country who are seeing these Israel Day Parade images to see a good image of people standing against that and showing something different, even if it’s just symbolic. I do think that probably, this should be back on the table as something we do. It is thankless. It does suck. I think that also, the Zionist community has gotten more violent since October 7th, and there is a threat of violence.

JNK 31:52

Well, especially given the massive police presence and the Israeli officials. Blocking the Israeli delegation sounds like a dangerous thing to do.

AA 31:59

That’s right. But still, I think for that reason, probably inspiring, and it shouldn’t be taken off the table. I also did want to go back to this question of the Jewish Pride Parade. This is part of what you’re calling the bait and switch, Josh—that this stands in for the Jewish Pride Parade, and that there’s no other way to show you support the Jewish community than this. Jill Jacobs, recently in JTA wrote a piece—and we’ll put it in the show notes—called “Jewish New York Deserves A Parade As Diverse As Its Communities.” I wanted to read a little bit from that before we close and talk about that, and what we see in this, and whether this feels possible. So, Jill says: The problem with the Israel Parade is that it becomes, “a litmus test, pressuring Jews essentially to sign on to the Israeli government’s agenda in order to participate in mainstream communal Jewish life, while also reducing New York Jews to a single aspect of Jewish identity, namely, a connection to another country.” And she has a vision of what our Jewish Pride Parade would look like. She says: 

AA 33:07

“What if, instead, we organized a Jewish heritage parade that showed off the full vibrancy and diversity of New York Jewish communities? There would be bands performing in Hebrew, Yiddish, Bukharian, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino, Juhuri, and English, and playing the tsimbl, oud, tambourine, and krar. Persian singers would ululate while cantors on guitar lead camp songs. Marchers could wear traditional Jewish dress from Georgia, Greece, India, and Syria.”

AA 33:30

“There would be demonstrations of Israeli dance, simcha dancing, and Yemenite step. The Jewish Museum could construct giant paper mache versions of Chagall or Modigliani figures. The Folksbiene’s float would feature a scene from Yiddish theater, while the Sephardic Brotherhood might build a replica of the original Spanish/Portuguese Synagogue. Reboot could reprise its 2010 Sukkah City installation, with the winning designs gliding down Fifth Avenue.”

AA 33:55

She talks about the Israeli flag being there, but also Bund flags, the Chabad flag, the Jewish LGBTQ pride flag, and whatever other banners Jewish artists might design to represent different segments of the community. I wanted to pose this to you. Does this seem attractive to you guys, the idea of a kind of Jewish parade that includes Israel? She says it doesn’t not include Israel, but that also is actually a Jewish pride parade that is about all of the Jewish cultures in New York City.

AK 34:27

I’m conflicted in that I would feel corny to go, but it also feels really nice, in some ways. It sounds really corny. And Rabbi Jacobs, don’t get upset. Sorry. But I do appreciate the vision behind it. Especially—or only if, I should say—if anti-Zionist Jews can be there as a bloc as well. Like, I think it’s kind of nice.

JNK 34:52

I mean, I think it gets at the essential problem of the moment, which is that Zionism was the pillar, the central pillar that unified virtually all of American Judaism for the last 50 years. And so, it’s even today almost impossible to imagine an event like this that doesn’t circle around that, in some way. Without that, what is there? I don’t know. I think, as we think about American Judaism after Zionism, you do have to imagine things in this direction, but I’m not sure we’re there yet.

AA 35:26

Yeah. I mean, look, the problem with her vision is that unless there were no politics, you would never get the anti-Zionists to participate. That’s something that I do believe. If the Zionists are allowed to have their corner or whatever, and we basically, they’re doing Israeli dance over there without talking about the way that Israeli dance was literally appropriated from Palestinians and Arab inhabitants of the land—or to the extent that Israel is allowed into this, then it becomes suspicious for people who are not interested in that. Now, would some of those people with kids still go, if the focus was off of Israel and on to these other diasporic expressions of Judaism in New York City? I think they probably would, and honestly, that would be a huge improvement. I actually am moved by some of what she writes here, and there is enough diasporic culture in Jewish life in New York City to do this. Just think of the food that you would have if you have the food of the Bukharian Jews, and the Brighton Beach Soviet Jews, and if you have all the pickle guys from the Lower East Side or whatever, and then you have all of these people singing in their languages or whatever. That could be very, very beautiful. But the existence of Zionism and Israel as part of this, as a normalizing force during a genocide, is a non-starter for many of us. And so, it’s very hard to imagine how you have this and also include that without it being central. 

AA 37:00

The other thing that I would say is Jill Jacobs mentions the Greek Jewish festival. I’m Greek Jewish, and I tried to get involved there for a number of years. I have a lot of respect for the people who are putting that on, and like, it’s just strung with Israeli and Greek flags. The Greek Jewish community is a very small community that was decimated during the Holocaust. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors. A lot of the people in the Greek Jewish synagogue here are people who came over before. So, they’re four or five generations in, like turn-of-the-century emigration. That event is around a Greek Jewish synagogue there, but most of the culture in it is either Greek or Jewish, and by that, they mean Zionist. There’s very little direct expression of what is Greek Jewish because that culture has been lost, on some level. And so, what does it mean? It means like Greek music, and some staples of Greek Jewish food that remain, and Israel. And I think that’s to your point, Josh, about the fact that there is some way in which Jewish culture has come to mean Zionism, and it would actually take practice for some of these groups to rehabilitate, in a meaningful sense, their cultures in order to display them. That takes a lot of work, and not everybody is going to do that work.

JNK 38:29

But maybe something like what Jill is suggesting is an important step. Maybe that’s the beginning of moving forward as a people.

AA 38:37

I agree with that. I think there’s something very beautiful in what she is suggesting. I just think it’s so hard to—I mean, maybe I should just read her piece, just to be fair to her, because she does have a political vision for this. She says: “Political differences would also make an appearance, but this wouldn’t be new territory for the parade, especially now as Israel is enmeshed in yet another war and as our community has been torn apart by the violence of the past two and a half years. There is no such thing as apolitical when it comes to Israel.” I mean, I appreciate her saying this directly. 

AA 39:10

“The new parade would not try to project a false unity, or paper over real differences, but rather would integrate political diversity. Social justice organizations might construct floats that depict icons of New York Jewish organizing, such as Clara Lemlich or Bella Abzug, or that condemn ICE. Groups on the right could hold signs supporting public funding for religious schools. Billboard trucks could display slogans favoring secular education in yeshivot and slogans opposing government oversight.”

AA 39:36

“And yes, there would be Israel politics, too, with signs advocating left-wing, right-wing, and centrist positions, even when some statements make other participants uncomfortable or angry. These are also part of the kaleidoscope of Jewish New York. (Perhaps a wise and diverse advisory committee could organize the order of marchers to reduce conflict between them.) All opinions would be welcome, other than those advocating or condoning violence against Palestinians, Israelis, or anyone else.”

AK 40:02

Yeah, that sounds nice, except, to your point, Arielle, how do you have pro-Israel bloc that doesn’t condone violence against Palestinians?

AA 40:11

Exactly.

AK 40:12

But I agree, it is a nice vision.

AA 40:14

I mean, it’s definitely better than what we have now. And I certainly believe that a Jewish pride parade that was not political or that was not about Israel could be a great thing, and a beautiful thing, and actually celebrate the diversity. I mean, whatever. I’m not big on parades. I have to be honest with you.

JNK 40:31

Right. You wouldn’t go.

AA 40:32

Well, I might go out of curiosity for the first year or something, but it does sound like kind of a nightmare.

JNK 40:38

But actually, more materially, would the day schools bus in the kids? If not, who would actually be there?

AA 40:44

Well, but I think actually Jewish New Yorkers would come to something like that.

AK 40:48

I’m not big on marching in parades, but I would take my kid to show her: Hey, this is part of being Jewish. It’s fun, and it’s really diverse, and you can learn a lot. I’m not going to get that at my small, pretty homogenous, progressive, largely white synagogue, which I like taking her to in the sense of exposing her to Jewish life. And I’m not religious at all, and so we’re very kind of: Okay, here’s the Jewish thing. And then the rest of her life is not really that Jewish.

AA 41:16

Right. I think parents would bring their kids.

JNK 41:18

Alex, I’ll see you there then.

AA 41:20

I mean, I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to go to places like this, which is the reason that I don’t have kids.

AK 41:26

If they’re singing Ladino songs, maybe you would go.

JNK 41:28

You could be in the choir.

AA 41:29

Yeah, who else? That is true. There are like five of us. I’m going to agree—a rare moment where I’m going to agree mostly with Jill Jacobs—that it would be great to have a Jewish pride parade in New York to replace the Israel Day Parade, and that the real challenge would be, if you actually kept Israel out of it, how to convince people on the Zionist side that that was okay to do. And if you didn’t keep Israel out of it, how you would actually get the people who are left out of this broader Israel conversation, because they are against the state, into the room.

AK 42:08

It might be time for a follow-up piece to “We Need New Jewish Institutions”: “We Need New Jewish Parades.” I guess a parade is an institution as well.

AA 42:16

Yeah. It is. The Israel Day Parade is a New York institution, whether we like it or not, and I think it should be abolished, and I think that this year is a very good example of why. This has been another episode of On the Nose. Thank you to our editor, Jesse Brenneman. Thank you to my colleagues, Alex and Josh. If you like this episode, share it, rate it, leave us a review, and as always, subscribe to Jewish Currents: JewishCurrents.org. See you next time, everyone.