It was a day filled with work, news, and play, so to speak. It started out with a Five Towns event that included 25 vendors from Israel selling apartments and homes for people looking to buy a stake in the land of Israel.
In between all this, we were shaken by yet another attempt on the life of Donald Trump, this time on his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. A few hours later, we were at Madison Square Garden along with 15,000 other people enjoying the music of Ishay Ribo and friends.
The long weekend really began on late Thursday night, when I received a phone call from the real estate show organizer, Gidon Katz, who was on his way to New York City from London. It was 2 a.m. in London when he called, and he informed me that the venue he had contracted months earlier to hold the event had expressed the desire to cancel because they were receiving calls from pro-Hamas supporters threatening to flood the streets with pro-Palestine demonstrators.
This wasn’t the first Five Towns protest rodeo of this nature. About six months ago, the same organizer also set up an Israeli real estate show and the “Free Palestine” crowd was out protesting, but not really in full force. Rather, it was a rag tag collection of paid agitators who show up at all Israel-oriented events, mostly because they are paid to be there rather than out of conviction. So, there’s not that much passion in their rhetoric. It’s more like a cash-for-protest deal.
My information is that the billionaire anti-Israel financier George Soros and his hard-left acolytes are paying protestors like the ones we observed this past Sunday around $250 per event, with $500 for the organizers, which is fueling the explosion of radical anti-Israel protests at colleges all across the country. In fact, it may be the leaders who yell the loudest at these events.
For almost a year now, these anti-Israel, anti-Semitic demonstrations (mostly concentrated in New York) have been organized by branches of the Soros-funded Students for Justice in Palestine, and have not been your average garden-variety protest. So, when it takes place in Cedarhurst, as it did last Sunday, it is both an anomaly and a unique occurrence.
It is important to note that it is neither accidental nor coincidental by any stretch of the imagination. County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick J. Ryder are serious about protecting Nassau County. As Bruce states in his public addresses, Nassau County has a population of 1.5 million, larger than ten U.S. states. And, at 300,000, the county has one of the largest Jewish populations in the world outside of Israel. So, it takes sensitivity and foresight to protect the residents from the aims and objectives of these miscreants.
Throughout Thursday evening, the Nassau County Police Department assured the public and members of the board that they are making their full security assets available to ensure the event goes without incident—and it did.
Interestingly, a source in New Jersey related to the 5TJT that in Bergen County and specifically in Teaneck, where Sunday’s Israel real estate show is scheduled to take place, representatives of the police department have been calling local shuls, asking them to not host anything resembling an Israeli real estate program. This approach is the exact opposite of the role the Nassau County PD plays here.
The event will move forward, but it will take place in Hackensack instead of Teaneck, the preferred city of the organizers. Teaneck has a solid, substantial, and important Orthodox Jewish community, and it is a success for the pro-Hamas element to have outmaneuvered the police through acts of intimidation.
Sunday night, more than 15,000 people gathered at Madison Square Garden to attend the well-advertised, long-awaited Ishay Ribo concert. The Garden is a fantastic and professional venue and one thing there is no shortage of is staff. The entrance and exits from the venue ran very smoothly.
{Photo credit Jonathan Carmelli & Yisroel Teitelbaum
Ishay Ribo is probably the greatest thing that has happened to the Jewish music scene since Shlomo Carlebach. Ribo, at just 35, sings as if the music pours out of him. He writes and performs songs that made the place jump with giddy animation. Joining Ribo on stage were Israeli singing stars Eviatar Banai and Idan Raichel, both of whom performed with Ishay in the middle of the concert. They even did a Carlebach song together as a tribute to the singing rabbi. That was much better than having a warm-up act that forces you to wait an extra 45 minutes until the featured performer takes over.
As the crowd streamed into Madison Square Garden, we knew earlier in the day, a few hours prior, that there was a second attempt on the life of Donald Trump, this time at his golf course in West Palm Beach, just five miles from his home, Mar-a-Lago.
Our political process here is supposed to be winding down, especially as we approach Election Day. But on the other hand, after two years of slogging along, it might just be winding up and hitting a very damaging and counterproductive stride.
The manner in which our political discourse has devolved, especially on the national level, is highly disturbing and the American people should be tired of it and demanding better. Not that anyone is going to listen, even if we could somehow communicate this message to the leadership. But, as it says at the beginning of Parashat Noach, prior to the deluge that destroyed the world, the reason why G-d issued this decree is because “the world was filled with corruption.”
Unfortunately, to a large extent, that is what we are dealing with today, which is the corruption of the internal political process with the help of the media in an unprecedented fashion. Don’t think Donald Trump is the solution to all these problems. You may not agree with him, but oddly enough, he offers a refreshingly honest approach that does not exist on the other side of the political aisle.
For the Jewish community, for a variety of reasons, he is our best hope and choice. Unfortunately, from Biden to Harris to Schumer, the future of Israel is in danger more so than anything that could occur during a second Trump administration. And that policy impacts and manifests itself over there from the Gaza Strip to the border of Lebanon to our streets in New York, Florida, and everywhere that Democratic leaders leave even a little room to tolerate hatred for Israel, which is the gateway that leads to unadulterated antisemitism.
As we go to press Wednesday evening, Donald Trump is holding a rally at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY. Trump brings a dynamism with him that is unmatched. At times he struggles to express himself effectively, but sometimes that is an aspect of leadership that challenges a man like Trump. The security at the Coliseum will be intense. We have our press passes and hope to be there.
The worst of the anti-Trumpers is the legacy media that runs interference for the Democrats. Their coverage is unabashedly imbalanced and they don’t even try to feign objectivity or evenhandedness. A day after the second assassination attempt against President Trump, Hillary Clinton on MSNBC could only talk about the “danger” that Trump poses to the U.S. At one point earlier this year, Congressman Dan Goldman of Brooklyn said on a news program that, “Trump has to be eliminated.” What type of responsible person talks that way?
More importantly, what will it take to get this great country on the right course once again? n
Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
B”H The answer to the clueless publisher-editor’s question —- what will it take to get this great country on the right course once again? —- doesn’t lie in the bromides he offers, beginning and ending with his god that failed, the convicted, 34x felon, betrayer of wives and nation 45th President! As has been said, often by me, are we nuts to again offer to an ignorant-intolerant-bigoted disgraced authoritarian the code to the ultimate weapons in our disposal? Can a Jew or an Israeli feel confident having an insurrectionist back in the residence he made the whites’ house, and who blithely would hand Ukraine on a platter to the ruthless murderer in the Kremlin? How about the seditionist’s inclination to destroy the longest successful alliance in NATO, that has both kept Europe safe and prosperous? The former President is unhinged in his inane repetitive public rallies, giving contradictory approaches to the woman’s reproductive rights; while never addressing his penchant to lie as a matter of policy —- amassing more than 45k bloopers! Can you trust this child-man to abide by Constitutional restraints when he plainly says that this revered document may have outlived its use. Does anyone have confidence he will accept defeat when, following his perverse late mentor Roy Cohn’s advise, he continues to assert the ‘20 election was stolen from him? In the final analysis our choice is directed to a person of character and principle; plainly, the candidate who was raised morally defective manifestly has neither quality. Clearly, history beckons to reject the 45th’s blueprint, Project 2025, for the destruction of our bureaucracy and republic, voting instead for the hope and joy the Harris-Walz team represents for Democrats, independents, and Republicans like me! We’re not going back to reactionary politics.with fraternal affection, Asher 🙏😎🇺🇸🎶🇮🇱🔯🕍❤️
In his recent speech to the Israeli-American Council and, ironically, at an event entitled “Fighting Anti-Semitism,” Donald Trump stated that, if he only wins 40% of the “Jewish vote” (a very optimistic number, based on recent polling), “in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I’m at 40%.” My question is a simple one – How does any Jewish Trump supporter find this acceptable? Scapegoating the Jews is classic anti-Semitism. Trump’s question of Jewish loyalty is nothing new. When speaking to American Jewish groups, he consistently refers to Israel as “your country” and Benjamin Netanyahu as “your Prime Minister” Where are the condemnations of such statements? And, please don’t use the “but his daughter and grandchildren are Jewish” defense while claiming at the same time that Kamala Harris, who has a Jewish husband, is anti-Semitic.