salute to israel parade 2009

it was a beautiful day for a parade, except for the brief rain at 4:20 yesterday afternoon when i was leaving the post - parade concert in central park.

the parade was as enjoyable as ever. kahane chai or jdl or whatever they are calling themselves these days were there selling meir kahane's books. they had the book why be jewish . that book had been out of print for years. i had been trying to find it ever since i took it out of the library about ten years ago. though the pop-culture references in the book are dated, the sentiment is not.

its always fun to see the professional marching bands mixed with the usual hodgepodge of parade marchers.

enjoy the pictures.

salute to israel parade

when i first came to new york i was so amazed that there was a salute to israel parade. of course new york is the home of parades. there is the thanksgiving day parade, puerto rican day parade, the halloween parade ... well you get the point. it still amazes me that there is a salute to israel parade. ive gone almost every year. some years its scorching hot outside, other years its chilly. no matter, the energy is always the same. there is always a healthy mixture of secular and observant jews. it is one of the few times one sees this. new york is so ethnically segregated. unfortunately we jews often take this so many steps further by separating to our own religious groups never speaking to one another.

as religiously diverse as the salute to israel parade is, the concert in central park afterward is mostly orthodox jews.

i plan on going to the parade tomorrow. hopefully many of you who live in the new york area will be there as well.