Teaneck NJ police estimated that more than 6,000 people attended the
Ben Yehuda Street Fair on West Englewood Avenue between Palisade
Avenue and Queen Anne Road on April 6. The fair was a celebration of
Israel’s 60th anniversary.
Miriam Allenson of the United Jewish Federation in River Edge said she
had given directions to the fair to callers from as far as Monmouth
County and Queens.
"The fair shows that the community can celebrate Israel not only in
crisis but in times of peace and quiet," she said.
However, the fair included a reminder of a darker side of Israel’s
history, unplanned by fair organizers. On the east side of Queen Anne
Road, about a dozen Orthodox men from Neturei Karta, a community of
Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism and the State of Israel, staged a
peaceful protest. They were joined by a handful of Palestinian and
Arab demonstrators.
According to its Web site (
www.nkusa.org) Neturei Karta was founded in
Jerusalem in 1932 after breaking away from an earlier group of Jews
founded in 1912, also for the purpose of opposing Zionism.