Jun 1, 2008 7:19 pm US/Eastern
Thousands March To Salute Israel In NYC
NEW YORK (AP) ―
Thousands of people marched up Fifth Avenue on Sunday in the annual Salute to Israel Parade celebrating the 1948 founding of the Jewish state.
"It's important to show our solidarity with the only democratic state in the Mideast," said Michael Bernstein, who came from Woodmere, on Long Island, to watch the parade marking Israel's 60th birthday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Gov. David Paterson and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine joined other elected officials near the head of the parade, which organizers said included 100,000 marchers.
Entertainer Lainie Kazan waved from one of the floats as hundreds of spectators lined the parade route between 56th and 79th streets.
About 200 pro-Palestinian counterdemonstrators watched from behind police barricades.
"Israel was built, a colonial country, on another people's land," said protester Riham Barghouti. "We're here to say that this is not something that we should, as New Yorkers, as people, as human beings, celebrate."
Pro-Israel parade-goers hoisted the country's blue and white flag and sang Jewish folk songs. Contingents from yeshivas and Jewish day schools around the region marched in their school T-shirts.
Lisa Mayer was waiting for her 13-year-old son, Aaron, to file by with schoolmates from the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She had just spotted a group from the school she herself attended 30 years ago.
"Everybody's kvelling over everyone else's kids," she said. "It's a big social event."
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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