Jews on Parade

I set out earlier today with the intention of walking around Central Park. On the way, however, I stumbled upon a huge parade celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. 5th avenue was absolutely packed with people wearing yalmukas and sporting payot. Nearly everyone I saw was wearing some sort of Israel-related t-shirt as well.

Here's some pictures I took:

There were countless floats like this one. I didn't take many pictures until the end, so I missed most of them. It was kind of funny though. Most of the floats were for Jewish Kidney Donation organizations and other groups of that ilk having no connection to the reunification of Jerusalem. But I suppose if you need Jewish themed floats for a parade, you'll take what you can get.

The parade was mostly made up of little kids waving flags and holding banners for their local yeshiva. This was the best part. At the tail end of the parade were a sea of bikers. There were probably 100 of them.

Israeli bikers are quite the sight to see...

I tried my best to capture the Hell's Angels patches and jackets people were wearing, but it was bright and my camera phone sucks. Who knew there was a Jewish Hell's Angels chapter?

As I was walking back, an ambulance came screaming up from behind the parade. People weren't getting out of the way because they thought it was part of the parade...I found this kind of interesting. At the front of the parade route, they blocked off the street with huge dump trucks instead of the normal wooden police roadblocks. The more I thought about it, the more I noticed the security. The front (and presumably the back) of the parade route was blocked off by dump trucks. The sides were blocked off for blocks. There was a massive police presence and I even saw a number of K9 units. I wonder if all this was to prevent suicide car bombers?

This is about a half hour later. I was sitting in my room when I heard police sirens directly below my window. I looked out and saw that they had blocked off second avenue and the bikers were proceeding one at a time down 84th street. There was also a wall of school buses parked outside for some reason. Maybe that's how all the yeshiva kids got there...

So there you have it. Yet another random day in New York.