What I Didn’t See at the Israel Day Parade

Thousands upon thousands gathered in New York on Sunday for the Israel Day Parade. For the first time in years, I was not one of them. Instead, I followed from afar, watching seas of people of every age. I don’t know the official attendance numbers, though from what I can see it was packed and everyone I’ve spoken with insists it had one of the strongest turnouts in years.

There has already been more than enough discussion about who did or did not attend in elected office. I’m not interested in giving that any more airtime. What stayed with me was something much more striking:

I did not see a single marcher wearing a mask.

People showed up wearing blue and white. They carried Israeli flags. They marched with synagogue groups, schools, camps, federations, families, and friends. (There was even a Muslim group that marched under its own banner.)

Jewish people came visibly, publicly, and above all, proudly. And that felt remarkable, because over the nearly three years since October 7, Jewish life has not exactly rewarded visibility. The rise in antisemitism has not been abstract. We have watched Jews targeted in ways that once felt unimaginable in places that were supposed to feel safe.

Here in the United States, Jews have watched violence move closer: Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky murdered in Washington, D.C.; an armed attacker targeting Temple Israel in Michigan while children were inside; and the firebombing attack in Boulder that killed Karen Diamond.

Jewish businesses have been vandalized. Synagogues have increased security. Jewish students on university campuses have described harassment, exclusion, intimidation, and anxiety about expressing Jewish or Zionist identity. Jewish physicians, therapists, trainees, and patients have also spoken openly about rising incidents of antisemitism within medical and mental health spaces, from professional associations and conferences to workplace climates and concerns about whether Jewish and Zionist identities are being treated as suspect rather than simply part of the diversity those professions claim to value. 

And this is not uniquely American.

In Australia, Jews are still living in the shadow of the attack at Bondi Beach. In London, intimidation and attacks in Golders Green shook assumptions that visibly Jewish life could continue without fear. In Toronto, shootings at Jewish schools, attacks on synagogues, and repeated security incidents transformed institutions once associated with ordinary communal life into places requiring visible protection. And the list goes on. 

Taken together, these incidents have left many Jews across the diaspora speaking openly about something that once would have sounded alarmist: feeling less safe, more exposed, and more aware that visible Jewish identity can carry real risk.

I have friends who have changed their names to less Jewish sounding ones on their rideshare accounts. Some people have removed the mezuzot from their doorposts. Others tuck Jewish star necklaces under shirts, hesitate before posting publicly, or think twice before attending events that visibly mark them as Jewish. Which is why this parade struck me.

Because it stands in contrast to other images that have become familiar in recent years: anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations where many participants choose anonymity, faces covered, identities concealed, concern about being recognized. The contrast is worth noticing.

And yet at the Israel Day Parade, I noticed something different. At a moment when Jews have arguably had more reason than most communities to worry about visibility, people showed up identifiable. Faces uncovered. Names attached. Flags raised. There is something powerful about public conviction that does not require concealment.

Whatever your politics, it is worth asking what it means when one movement increasingly embraces anonymity and another gathers in public. At a moment when Jews arguably have more reason than most communities to hide, they did the opposite. They showed up identifiable and openly.

There is something powerful about attaching your face to your convictions, especially when there is reason to believe doing so comes with risk.

This was not the first Israel Day Parade. It was the 62nd. Sixty-two years of people showing up publicly to say that Jewish identity and support for Israel belong in the civic square. 

Whatever the final attendance count turns out to be, the number I keep returning to is another one entirely:

Zero.

Zero masks. Just people showing up in blue and white, waving flags, and marching their values.