Rally

[debka_notion]

I attended my first rally tonight. It was in reaction to a woman having been arrested a couple of weeks ago for wearing a tallit at the kotel. It was a walk and then a big crowd listening to some sort of speakers whom I couldn't understand. So after a bit of that, I left early to walk home with a friend who had to get back to working on application essays for next year. The rally was an interesting mix of people, and included a wide variety of folks I knew- I saw many, many of my classmates, some friends from RRC, other friends from the Conservative Yeshiva, etc, etc.

It got a little confusing as part of the rally ended up being more general "take back Jerusalem from the Hareidim" in ways that were about letting more things be open on Shabbat, instead of being focused on the kotel issue and religious freedom there. One of my friends commented that it was like there were two rallies squished together: one of non-hareidi religious people talking about the kotel, and another of secular folks talking more broadly about control of Jerusalem. So the posters around me said things (in Hebrew, but I'm too lazy to type in Hebrew right now) like "There's more than one way to be a Jew" and "Free the Kotel a Second Time".

At one point some folks behind us lit a very small fire and got some sort of hot air balloon lit and going, and then released it, so that it flew away over the crowd. It distracted pretty much everyone briefly. It was a lovely thing to watch, but left me quite concerned as it was this flying thing with fire in it, roaming freely on the winds. I just dearly hope that it burned out before it hit anything inflammable...

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Sounds like quite the event. Wish I might have been there to take part and march with you.

It really saddens and frustrates me sometimes that some Jews feel the need to be divisive and exclusive, when there are so few of us, we all ought to be sticking together. Is Israel a state for all Jews, or just some Jews? Is the Kotel for all Jews, or just some?

I love those posters.

[flintknappy.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's crazy. If you can't pray at the Kotel where on earth are you supposed to?

[hotshot2000.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I figured it would become. It seems to me that a better use of time would be to talk about what Shabbat ought to look like in contemporary Jewish culture (leaving aside the textual loyalty issues); if they got the values right, it wouldn't look like a bunch of economically-privileged people being served (in cafes or malls) by less economically-privileged people (either Jews or non-Jews).