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Focus on hostages, hope at annual Israel parade in New York City

“There are still 58 hostages in Gaza. We hope that at the next parade, and much sooner, they are all back home,” Eric Goldstein, the CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, told JNS.

Attendees at the Israel Day on Fifth Parade in Manhattan, NYC, May 18, 2025. Credit: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office.
Attendees at the Israel Day on Fifth Parade in Manhattan, NYC, May 18, 2025. Credit: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office.

An estimated 40,000 people, including members of Congress and the Knesset, Israeli ministers, local public officials, and former hostages and their families, lined Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue on Sunday as part of the 77th annual Celebrate Israel Day parade. The event took place amid uncertainty in Israel but also, organizers said, as a chance to unify around the event’s theme of “Hatikvah,” Hebrew for “hope,” and the anthem of the Jewish state.

“There is a lot to hope for this year. There are still 58 hostages in Gaza,” Eric Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, which co-organized the event, told JNS. “We hope that at the next parade, and much sooner, they are all back home.”

Goldstein, who was celebrating a new grandson born in Israel that morning, told JNS on Sunday that Jews also hope for “a country that is more prosperous and peaceful and that grows and thrives as a Jewish democratic homeland.”

“There’s a lot to hope for,” he said. “But it is so incredibly important to us in this moment.”

Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS at the parade that he met with many of the relatives of hostages on Friday. “They came to march with us here today. It’s not easy every time we meet them,” Danon said. “I told them, ‘It will happen, but it will be sooner than later.’”

The Israeli ambassador told JNS that he met with Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy for the Middle East, before the latter’s trip to Gulf countries last week. Witkoff has been leading efforts to free the hostages, including Edan Alexander, a dual U.S. and Israeli citizen, who was released last week.

Danon said that “the pressure that we apply today on Hamas” through heavier military operations “can allow something to happen very soon.”

Despite political attacks on the Jewish state, Israel has strong global backing, as evidenced by Yuval Raphael, an Israeli singer and Oct. 7 survivor, coming in second in the Eurovision competition last week, according to Danon.

“It showed that the world is not against us. Maybe some of the heads of government, some of the politicians, they want to advocate against Israel, but the entire world is not against us,” Danon told JNS.

“Sometimes, at the United Nations, I feel by myself, but when I get outside, I realize that we are not alone. We have a lot of friends. That is why we are committed to finishing the job, to bring back all the hostages and to eliminate Hamas,” he said.

Israel parade NY
Participants march in the Israel Day on Fifth Parade in Manhattan, NYC, May 18, 2025. Credit: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office.

Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which co-organized the event, told JNS, “We’re not giving up, ever, because resiliency and strength is in our DNA.”

“We are marching for the love and pride that we have in Israel, in our Jewish identity and who we are—that we live in the greatest city, the greatest country in the world, and our solidarity with Israel, which is so central to our Jewish identity,” Treyger told JNS.

“We’re marching forward,” he added. “We’re never going back.”

Under a heavy police presence, parade goers lined Fifth Avenue from East 62nd to East 74th streets on Sunday, cheering on floats and marchers from dozens of local and national Jewish organizations, synagogues and schools.

Several incidents of anti-Israel harassment were recorded on surrounding streets leading into and out of the parade, but no protests erupted along the route.

Several hostages freed from captivity in Gaza were in attendance, including Israeli-American Keith Siegel.

“People have been sharing their joy that I’ve been released, and it’s very, very moving,” Siegel told JNS. “I appreciate all the support that I’ve been receiving from the people in Israel, from the people in the United States. I appreciate the support from the Trump administration and all of the efforts that they have been doing, all of the achievements that they have accomplished.”

“It’s very, very warming to know that many, many people want the hostages back the same that I do,” he said.

‘As united as we can be’

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and former governor and mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo participated in the march, as did Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). The four members of Congress all delivered public remarks.

Schumer drew some light boos from the audience and departed shortly after speaking. Many of the politicians in attendance declined to talk to reporters and appeared to keep their public remarks apolitical.

A host of City Council members, state legislators and other local officials also participated in the march.

Notably, no Israeli officials in attendance—including economy and industry minister Nir Barkat, culture and sport minister Miki Zohar, minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Yisrael Ganz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council—spoke publicly.

Last year, some parade attendees criticized the presence of some of the Israeli government’s most outspoken members. JNS asked organizers if they had decided to keep divisive Israeli government officials at a distance this year.

“I can’t speak to who did or didn’t come,” Goldstein told JNS. “Clearly, today, we want to be as united as we can be, recognizing that there exist serious divisions, both there and here.”

“But today is really putting aside those differences and saying we are all that much stronger, so much stronger, when you have a vibrant, thriving Israel, and we in America are so much secure as a Jewish community when there is a vibrant, thriving state of Israel,” he said.

Israel parade
Pro-Israel attendees of the Israel Day on Fifth Parade in Manhattan, May 18, 2025. Credit: Office of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

‘What today is about’

Treyger told JNS that “this parade is bigger than any government, bigger than any individual.”

“This is about the Jewish people in a moment of crisis that we will overcome, because we’ve been here before,” he said. “We come here from many different backgrounds, speak many different languages, but when we march on Fifth Avenue, we’re marching as one, one people, one heart, one community, marching forward together. That’s what today is about.”

Siegel avoided a political response to a question about whether he backed any particular plan or mechanism to free the rest of the hostages.

“I’m not a politician. I’m not a diplomat, and I’m not a military strategist. The only thing I know is that we have an opportunity to get the hostages back. It’s an opportunity that we can’t miss,” the freed hostage told JNS.

“We must save them, and equally, the deceased need to have come back to their families, to an honorable burial, which is very, very important in the Jewish faith,” he said.

The freed hostage Eliya Cohen reunited at the parade with Dr. Noa Eliakim-Raz, head of Beilinson Hospital’s departments of internal medicine, and of returning hostages and the physician who treated him upon his liberation from Gaza.

“I was deeply moved to meet Eliya, the hero, marching for the return of the 58 hostages still held in captivity in Gaza,” Eliakim-Raz said publicly. “The rehabilitation of the returnees and of all of us as a people will not be complete without the return of them all, until the last hostage.”

The Tzabar leadership of Tzofim North America, the branch of the Israeli scout movement, helped open the parade with about 350 campers from area “tribes,” as well as Elinor Bitton Bariach, head of the Shaked tribe from Kfar Aza.

“I am proud to lead this incredible Zionist movement that develops a Jewish-Israeli identity for thousands of young men and women around the world,” said Raz Pearl, chairman of the Global Hebrew Scouts Movement.

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