Freedman from AFSI and their friends, who were arrested at a
demonstration for the Land of Israel in New York.
Being arrested for the Land of Israel is an honor! Keep up your great
work! Alu veHatzlichu.
Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katsover
--------------------------------
NY Police Arrest Rabbi and Five Other Pro-Israel Activists
New York police arrest a rabbi and five other activists who blocked
traffic in a protest against the PA bid for unilateral UN recognition.
Fern Sidman, INN NY correspondent and Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
New York police arrest a rabbi and five other activists who blocked
traffic in a protest against the Palestinian Authority bid for
unilateral United Nations recognition at the United Nations annual
General Assembly.
They were arrested during a rally co-sponsored by Americans For a Safe
Israel (AFSI) and Amcha that drew more than 35 people, many of whom
also stood in street with them. Police took into custody Rabbi Avi
Weiss, director of Amcha-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, In addition
to Rabbi Weiss, who is also senior rabbi at the Hebrew Institute of
Riverdale, and Helen Freedman of AFSI, Cheryl Jacobs Lewin, chairwoman
of AFSI's Chicago chapter, Miriam Prince; Sarah Rosenbaum; and Glenn
Richter.
Holding aloft large Israeli and American flags and signs declaring
"Shame On the UN For Demonizing and Delegitimizing Israel!" and "We
Support Israel", the rally participants chanted "Am Yisrael Chai" (the
Jewish people live), as police began to handcuff and lead the six
demonstrators to a nearby paddy wagon. They were brought to the 17th
precinct in Midtown Manhattan were they were booked on charges of
disorderly conduct.
Pointing to the UN building looming in the background, Rabbi Weiss
told the demonstrators, who gathered in the heavy rain, “Today we are
sitting in the street to tell this den of evil that they will be
responsible for the violence that will, G-d forbid, take place in
Israel as a result of this move to legitimize a state that clearly
does not want peace. If the New York City police really "got it", they
wouldn't be arresting us who represent the Jewish voice of
consciousness and those who speak truth to power, but they'd be
arresting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who is guilty of
murdering countless numbers of his own people and who threatens
genocide against the Jewish state."
Glenn Richter, a former leader of the Student Struggle for Soviet
Jewry organization and a leading spokesman for Jewish causes,
declared, "There can be no business as usual at the United Nations
while it continues to demonize and delegitimize Israel, endorse a
unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, and welcome the evil
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
Also attending the rally was Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive director
of New York Board of Rabbis, who said, "Given the choice between being
part of an immoral majority or moral minority, I'd rather be part of
the minority than the majority which meets in the UN and makes Israel
too often the guilty party. There's a Yiddish saying which
translates, 'fear G-d, not people'. We're here because of what people
may sometimes do to us, and that's why we have to be so vocal."
Saying that she was mortified by the abject silence of the Jewish
establishment organizations in lieu of the impending UN vote to create
a Palestinian state predicated on a terrorist doctrine, Freedman said
before being arrested, "Incomprehensibly, the major Jewish
organizations have chosen to stay away from the battle. Is it
spinelessness or mindlessness?"
Turning her attention to the existential threat that a Palestinian
state would present for Israel, she added that PA Chairman Mahmoud
Abbas unilateral efforts to have a PA state declared at the UN are
“reprehensible and incredibly dangerous for Israel.“
“Iran's Ahmadinejad should not be permitted into this country, not in
New York City and certainly not in our streets, restaurants, and
universities, while he is threatening the western world with nuclear
war,” she added. “The Durban III denunciations of Israel should not be
tolerated. The entire purpose of the United Nations has been turned
upside down."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/148122#.TnmyJ9TviSo
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Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
mailto:wfit2@womeningreen.org
http://www.womeningreen.org