On Sunday, two parades took place simultaneously, separated by a hundred miles but united by something far deeper than geography.
In New York City, tens of thousands marched up Fifth Avenue to celebrate the Israel Day Parade, the annual affirmation of Diaspora Jewry’s unbreakable bond with the Jewish state. I’ve attended this parade for decades. I remember going to this parade as a little kid in elementary school, feeling the electricity of a people declaring in unison: we are with you.
After October 7, when I was in Israel, ordinary Israelis stopped me on the street to ask whether the Diaspora was behind them. They were really asking whether they were alone.
The answer throughout that trying time, as we sent thousands of duffle bags of equipment and over a billion dollars in donations, with thousands of Jews flying from the Diaspora to serve in the IDF, was no. It was the same answer that those who marched on Sunday showed once again.
At the very same time, in Philadelphia, something equally extraordinary was unfolding. Tens of thousands gathered at the Xfinity Stadium for the Adirei HaTorah celebration, which highlights Jewish learning and heritage.
Adirei HaTorah has grown into something almost impossible to describe unless you have seen it: an arena filled with Jews who have dedicated their lives to the oldest covenant in human history, overflowing with music and energy and pride.
Both sights would have stunned our ancestors.
There are Jews on each side who look at participants in the other event and feel uncomfortable. Some who marched in New York harbor frustrations about the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community’s relationship with the State of Israel and the IDF.
Some who gathered in Philadelphia hold complicated views about Zionism and the modern Jewish state. Those tensions are real, and I will not pretend otherwise.
In truth, we need both Torah and Israel, and we need to figure out how to make them work together.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, once walked into the Security Council chamber brandishing a Bible. He held it up before the assembled delegates of the world and used it as proof of God’s presence and the connection of Jews to their homeland in Israel.
Afterward, I told him how moved I was by what he had done. He looked at me and said something I have repeated ever since: “Without the Bible, we don’t have the claim to the land.”
He said it simply, almost matter-of-factly, but the weight of it has stayed with me. Without Torah, our connection to this land is not longstanding. Without the land, Torah becomes an artifact of exile rather than a living inheritance.
Israel cannot exist without Torah. Torah cannot exist without Israel. That is not a slogan. It is the entire story of Jewish history compressed into a single sentence. We need both.
Mamdani vs Jewish Unity
There is also a political dimension to this moment that deserves attention. New York City is home to one of the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel, and it now has a mayor who refused to march in the Israel Day Parade, the first Mayor of the city to do so since 1964.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani danced at the Pakistan Day Parade, a country that harbored Osama Bin Laden, who slaughtered thousands of New York citizens, but was absent when the Jewish community came together on Fifth Avenue.
Mamdani was true to his laurels. He hates Israel and always has. Ever since his rise to power, he has made deliberate political efforts to separate American Jews from Israel, to make support for the Jewish state seem optional, even embarrassing.
This is not a new tactic. It stretches back to the French Revolution, when Jews were told they could be accepted as individuals but not as a people.
I posted this comparison recently on my X/Twitter feed, and it garnered a lot of attention. Mamdani’s goal is to dissolve Jewish solidarity, because those who wish us harm understand something we sometimes forget: when Jews stand together, we are strong.
The two parades on Sunday show us how much we need to speak to one another. We must also do everything we can to work out our differences. The world has to be viewed through the lens of Torah uncompromisingly, but with an understanding that our home is Israel, and we must feel connected to Israel and do everything we can to help support the country.
We have to come together to figure out how to move forward.
The two elements were never meant to be separated. We need both. We always have.
The writer is the International CEO of Aish, a global Jewish educational movement. He formerly served as Eastern Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where he oversaw the Museum of Tolerance in New York City.