Jews of Diverse Views Rally for Israeli Solidarity

In a show of solidarity with Israelis, about 5,000 members of Los Angeles’ Jewish community rallied Sunday to reaffirm their support in the face of ongoing violence, economic hardship and demoralization in the Holy Land.

The rally was billed as a “people to people” demonstration, rather than a more controversial display of political support for the Israeli government, now led by conservative Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It drew participants from groups representing a cross-section of the Jewish community, including those that normally would be at odds over Middle East political issues. The turnout was about half the minimum 10,000 participants organizers expected.

“It’s very important for a community that has so many different views about the peace process, about religious observance, to speak with one voice,” U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Los Angeles) said Sunday.

About 60 of the 5,000 present, including Jews and non-Jews, shouted other points of view. Some supported an independent Palestinian state, others criticized Sharon for not taking stronger measures against Palestinian terrorists. Others simply called for peace.

“We want the Jewish community to see another message--that Arabs and Jews are not enemies and that we have been misled by the peace process,” said one of the counterdemonstrators, Jordan Elgrably, of Open Tent, a U.S.-based interfaith coalition that advocates peace in the Middle East.

Sunday’s rally was part of a national strategy by Jewish organizations to regain the public relations offensive. Some Jewish leaders fear Palestinians have been reaping propaganda benefits. About 600 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in 10 months of sporadic violence that has frustrated the peace process. A rally similar to Sunday’s is planned in New York in September.

Many trace Israel’s faltering image to the dramatic videotape of a Palestinian father hovering over his young son, trying to shield him from Israeli gunfire in Gaza last September. The 12-year-old boy, Mohammed Al-Durrah, was killed.

Most talk and outrage Sunday was directed at the terrorist bombing June 1 that killed 21 Israeli students at a Tel Aviv nightclub.

“For the rest of our lives there will be an empty place in our hearts, a place that belongs just to them,” said their classmate, Olga Bakharakh, 17, a Russian-born Israeli whom the organizers flew to Los Angeles for the rally.

Gathering in front of the Wilshire Boulevard headquarters of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the crowd sang Jewish songs and waved Israeli and American flags. Others pumped placards up and down. “Americans for Peace Now. Secure the Dream,” said one. “A Time to Hate. A Time for War,” said another carried by a member of activist Irv Rubin’s militant Jewish Defense League.

“Those of us who have traveled to Israel are very appalled by what we’ve seen,” John Fishel, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said in an interview. “There’s a growing sense of anxiety and in some cases fear. We believe very strongly it is time for all of us who care to stand up and speak loudly and say to Israel, ‘We’re with you.’ ”

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, speaking by telephone from Israel, told a breakfast gathering before the rally that Israel needs the support of Los Angeles Jews, the second largest Jewish community in the United States.

“We are going through trying times,” he said. “But there is no room to lose our hope. We shall overcome. We shall overcome in the same way we did in the past, by being together, by seeing clearly our aims, by working ceaselessly to achieve them.”

Numerous Los Angeles speakers Sunday charged that Palestinians are cynically using their children in the battle over the occupied areas of Gaza and the West Bank.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) told the crowd, “We know that Israel is dedicated to peace. But we turn on our television set and we see a horrendous campaign of vilification as one side sends its own children charging into barbed wire hoping for a tragic death of their own children so long as it appears in front of CNN cameras. We are not fooled!”

Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple decried deaths of young Palestinians in the name of God.

The accusations were denied Sunday by Ahmad Sakr, a member of the board of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California and president of the Foundation of Islamic Knowledge.

“Nobody is telling them [youths] to go and die,” Sakr said in an interview. “But they have seen. They are out of jobs, out of school, out of money and out of home. What do you expect from them, except they have nothing to defend themselves except pebbles in front of them.”

Rabbi Marvin Heir, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, reminded the crowd that it was Israel that offered an unprecedented peace package to Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David last July and that Arafat had turned it down.

Despite brief skirmishes, no injuries or arrests were reported.

Times staff writer Nedra Rhone contributed to this story.