DC Rally

Not been to a rally to promote American values or Jewish values in a very long time.  The last I remember distinctly took place on the plaza of the Philadelphia Art Museum during my college years when Jews from around the metropolitan area assembled to advocate the permission of Soviet Jews to emigrate, something that happened about ten years later. Today Tzahal depends on the children of those immigrants to Israel.

Mistreatment of people has accelerated, something that has widespread voter support easily exploited by any number of demagogues, leaving Americans well short of its theoretical goal of Liberty and Justice for All.  Poor people want to be less poor, African-Americans don't want police to put their lives in danger, everybody objects to having a day in a classroom subject to a mass shooter.  And support for these groups invariably extends well beyond the people directly affected.  American majority sentiment is pretty good at coming down on the side of what is right, even if the electoral results and judicial interpretations of legal applicability to immediate situations don't.

So an invitation to a public protest of anti-Semitism sponsored by a coalition of Jewish organizations, a few of which I admire, came my way.  DC is not very far.  The closest I've been to a crowd since Covid pandemic restrictions has been a day at the beach, not counting traffic jams.  If I can get a shuttle bus at a reasonable rate, I'm in on this one.