Before the world changed on October 7, prepping to march in our annual Israel Day on Fifth parade usually involved frequent weather checks and putting on a comfortable pair of shoes.

I admit to focusing less on the theme of the parade each year, set by our close partners at JCRC-NY, who organize the day with our support.

But nearly 600 days since October 7 and with 58 hostages still in Gaza, everything is different.

This year’s theme “Hatikvah, The Hope” doesn’t feel like a theme. It feels like a prayer.

Hope is the very essence of what’s carried us forward these almost 600 days. And on the literal level, it refers to Israel’s national anthem, whose words continue to remind us of who we are and what we’re fighting for.

To all those who’ve questioned the Jewish people’s ties to Israel, or who use “Zionist” as a slur, the lyrics — written in 1878, long before the Holocaust or the establishment of the modern State of Israel — tell another story:

Our hope is not yet lost,

The hope of two thousand years,

To be a free people in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.  

What are Zionists but the Jewish people yearning for self-sovereignty in our ancestral homeland?

Today, the return to Zion has been realized. A miraculous achievement that can never be taken for granted. And yet, with 58 people still being held hostage, the country still at war with Hamas and beset by intense internal discord, our freedom — indeed, our aspiration for Israel as a Jewish and democratic homeland — is very much incomplete.

This year, once again, we’re helping to bring many former hostages and family members to what is the largest pro-Israel gathering in the world.

What can possibly manifest hope more than the presence of men and women who survived the horrors of captivity and are now fighting for those who remain behind? 

And if you need yet another reminder of what hope means to the Jewish people, take to heart these words by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, z’l:

“Jews lost many things in the course of history: their land, their home, their city Jerusalem, their holy of holies, the Temple; sometimes they lost their lives. But never did they lose their hope. Jews kept hope alive, and hope kept the Jewish people alive.”

Join us this Sunday, May 18, on Fifth Avenue. All the information you need is here.

Wear your comfortable shoes — and carry your hope on your sleeve. 

Shabbat shalom