EVEN THE TIMES CAN'T RAIN ON THIS PARADE

The Salute to Israel Parade was a remarkable event - over 100,000 marched, and somewhere between 800,000 to 900,000 supporters of Israel packed both sides of Fifth Avenue for over twenty blocks. I managed quite a workout dodging the roller-derbyesque train of strollers that pushed relentlessly through the mass of people. The crowd was a cross-section of New York Jewry, skewed young and frum, but overall quite diverse. Where else could you see within the span of a half hour a procession of Orthodox day school students, surbaban congregants from Conservative schools, the National Yiddish Book Club, and future Reform rabbis all marching together? The highlight of the parade - Dr. Ruth riding on the back of a motorcycle with the Chai Riders!!!

Of course, one could not get any sense of this from reading the New York times. Despite the fact that the event drew close to 900,000 supporters of Israel, fully two-thirds of the coverage was devoted to the 600 or so protestors. The Times' front page-picture prominantly displays a protestor's sign as well as some marchers in the parade. Turning to the story itself, deep in the Metro section, there are two pictures - a smaller one of pro-Israel marchers, and a larger one of anti-Israel protestors. Well, par for the course with the Times - this is one story it just can't seem to report objectively.