COUNTER DEMONSTRATION AGAINST
WALK FOR ISRAEL - HIGHLAND PARK, NJ MAY 4, 2003

Jews, Palestinians Stand Together Against Israel

As the Neturei Karta gathered in Highland Park, NJ to meet the Palestinians who were there to support them, a little girl asked, "Who are those rabbis, Mommy?" "They are not from our school. I don't know what they are doing here." The Highland Park Jewish community was soon to find out.

The occasion was "Walk For Israel," a fundraiser in Johnson Park commemorating Israeli Independence Day. Twenty-seven Hassidic Jews, including three rabbis had arrived to declare as heresy the existence of the State of Israel and recommend its peaceful dismantlement in the service of God.

Supported by members of the local community, including Palestinians, their message was simple. "Zionism is forbidden by the Holy Torah!" they admonished the Israeli flag-waving Zionists. Perhaps it was the first time many in the Highland Park community had ever heard that there was an Orthodox Jewish Anti-Zionist viewpoint, which is totally silenced by the media and public education system. That is why the Talmudic scholars and rabbis took the time and effort to come directly to their Jewish brethren to present their case. According to Rabbi Dovid Feldman, "Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing. In fact, authentic Judaism has always been opposed to the idea of a Jewish State.

"All rabbis were universally opposed to the Zionist state. In 1947, Rabbi J. Z. Dushinsky, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem wrote to the UN on behalf of 60,000 members of the Orthodox Jewish Ashkenazic Community of Jerusalem that they refused to accept Israeli citizenship upon inception of the Zionist State."

The Neturei Karta support Palestinian sovereignity over all of the Holy Land. As one Jewish demonstrator explained to a local supporter, it does not matter if the ruler of Palestine is Yasser Arafat or Saddam Hussein.

The Jewish community should ask permission to live in Palestine from the Palestinian government. If they are denied permission, they must leave peacefully. The Palestinian people have a right to their homeland and to financial restitution. But financial restitution is not a replacement for return of the refugees. Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their lands in Palestine, and not just to payments.The Neturei Karta believe that blame for the bloodshed in the Holy Land lies squarely on the Zionist movement's moral blindness and obstinate refusal to take into account the existence of peoples other than themselves.

The "Walk For Israel" had several hundred participants, less than the expected turn-out, for whom the County Park had been closed to cars. This privacy created an atmosphere where, despite the police barricade between the two camps, the message was able to get across clearly and perhaps painfully. Although the demonstration was small, it was a success, as it achieved the intended purpose, which was to make sure that such a shameless display of ethnic nationalism would not go unconfronted. It is hoped that this demonstration might encourage some misguided Zionists to turn back to Judaism.

Maria Hussain, Editor
World View News Service

• Read the News Article on this event published by the Home News Tribune
• Jerusalem Independent Media Center Article

• Neturei Karta Statement on Israeli Independence Day