Massive Pro-Israel Rally Planned for Nov. 14 in Washington, DC
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by Algemeiner Staff
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
A host of Jewish institutions are planning a march next week that organizers hope will be the largest pro-Israel event in American history.
The rally, which is being co-organized by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is set to take place on Nov. 14 at 1 pm at the National Mall in Washington, DC. Gates will open at 10:00 a.m.
On Sunday, Yeshiva University president Ari Berman announced that the school would close on the 14th. “We are going to Washington to stand with Israel, Am Yisrael Chai,” he wrote on X/Twitter.
A wide variety of Jewish organizations — including Agudath Israel, the Orthodox Union, and Americans for Peace Now — have all publicized the march.
Erika Rudin-Luria, president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, told the Cleveland Jewish News that the purpose of the rally will be to send a message to “stand with Israel against terror, release the hostages — bring them home now — and antisemitism has no home in the United States.”
The rally comes after hundreds of thousands of anti-Israel protesters have marched in capitals across the world, often displaying antisemitic signs.
In an Oct. 31 article for Tablet Magazine, Jewish leader and human rights activist Natan Sharansky highlighted the pressing need for a mass pro-Israel rally and drew a comparison with marches in 1987 attended by hundreds of thousands to support Soviet Jewry.
“If there is to be a future for America in America, it is time to step up in defense of its core values, and in this American Jews can play an important role,” Sharansky wrote. “Let us start with a March of One Million: students, parents, Jewish organizations, and allies coming together in support of academic freedom and against a primitive ideology that silences truth and justifies murderous rampages as a form of liberation.”
The Nov. 14 rally is set to take place about five weeks after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas invaded Israel from neighboring Gaza on Oct. 7 and murdered 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas also injured thousands of people and kidnapped over 200 others, taking them back to Gaza as hostages.
Since Hamas’ pogrom in southern Israel, there has been a sharp surge in antisemitic incidents around the globe, especially in the US and Europe.
