WASHINGTON, D.C. – They came to represent. The politically active and the inactive, the observant and the non-observant, the men and the women, the different generations, all here.
Milwaukee Jewish Federation chartered a plane and flew about 180 people on it to Washington, D.C., then flew it back that same day, to stand up for the beleaguered Jewish state at the March for Israel on Nov. 14, 2023.
Ordinary Jews and allies from the Milwaukee area, and some from elsewhere in Wisconsin, signed up for the flight just days before takeoff. They arrived at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport at 4:30 a.m. Despite the hour, and the difficult world and national news for the Jewish people, the mood was jubilant. On the plane, college students in the back sometimes broke out into cheers, while one Israeli woman randomly handed out what seemed like an endless flow of her own just-baked challahs.
When the rented Sun Country Airlines jet landed at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, four buses met the group on the tarmac. Passengers chit-chatted with fellow Jews and allies they’d never met, as though they’d known one another for years. After a walk of several blocks from a drop-off point, the group, sporting signs with messages like “ISRAEL MKE,” joined 290,000 other rallygoers at the National Mall, here for Israel.
In the evening, at the D.C. airport’s gate E8, circles of Jewish Wisconsin’s men and women spontaneously burst into song and dance. This, despite the fact that the mood had turned from jubilant to, yes, still jubilant, but also exhausted. It’s perfectly understandable that roughly half of those we approached for their thoughts on the trip said they were too tired to know what they’d even be saying. Others told us it was amazing, and that they felt compelled to come and stand up for Israel.
Why come?
“I watch the news so closely, about everything going on, and I have to do something with my energy. And my worries,” said Toby Lukoff, a retired medical social worker. She said she worries about Jewish college students, in particular.
“I just candidly felt like I had to come,” said Geoff Bloom, a Fox Point husband and father of three, who works in marketing.
He said that the weeks since Oct. 7 “have been incredibly challenging and incredibly difficult, but also transformative.” Bloom feels that groups he had an affinity for may now look at him differently, and he senses his place in America shifting.
“And it I felt like I needed to come and stand in solidarity and kind of express those feelings, and it was an incredible day,” he said.
Jess Plotkin-Sell, a Bay View teacher for the religious school at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun, River Hills, came at least in part for her students.
“I came today to stand for Israel, for the Jewish people, for myself as a Jew, and for my learners,” she said. “Since Oct. 7, a majority of my seventh, eighth and ninth graders have reported to me that they have experienced an antisemitic incident. That’s not just one or two. That’s not three, four or five. That’s the majority.”
“I have had learners who have told me that they have been ‘heiled’ in hallways at school, that they’re being bullied for being Jewish, that they are being targeted for being Jewish themselves that they’re afraid to share their Jewish identity.”
She said she came on the trip to “show them that we can’t let them win, that if we have an opportunity to show up, to be part of our community, to show pride and joy in it, if we have the resources to do it, then we also potentially have an obligation to do it.”
Asked why she came on the trip, 25-year-old Chaya Schlotman said: “Because I feel like it’s important for Milwaukee, for as many Jews as possible to represent our voice.”
Schlotman runs a Moishe Pod, a connecting point for young adults, on Milwaukee’s East Side.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a pretty active person. But I feel like I’ve been trying to go out of my way, because there’s so few of us. There’s not a lot of people speaking up,” said Schlotman, who is in her last semester of a mechanical engineering degree and works in the global supply chain business.
She referred to a Jewish notion that “in the place where there is no man, you have to strive to be that person.”
Diversity
Several people said they appreciated the diversity at the event.
“What was interesting about the content was that there was such a variety in views,” Schlotman said. She noted she saw signage from AIPAC, J Street, and she saw both Orthodox and non-Orthodox represented.
“You saw everybody kind of coming together,” she said.
“Every Jewish person who was here today was here as an authentic individual,” Plotkin-Sell said. “I would say, no two Jews who are here, have exactly the same opinions … And when we come together, we can support each other in such a really beautiful way.”
She added that she appreciated that several speakers covered the civilian casualties in Gaza. “We have to be able to see each other’s suffering and hold those two things together, our own suffering our own hurts and their hurt too so that we can move forward together,” Plotkin-Sell said.
Great trip
Several attendees raved about the trip.
Plotkin-Sell said she can’t wait to bring the trip home to her CEEBJ students: “I’m going to tell them about it. I have pictures. I’m going to talk about how moving it was. I was amongst a crowd of 300,000 Jews. I’ve never seen that many Jews in one spot.”
Schlotman said she wants to bring the energy from the trip back to Milwaukee. She noted that there has been “a loud presence” of anti-Israel activity in Milwaukee, “and that has made me feel unsafe.”
“And so being here and being able to be loud and proudly Jewish has been something that’s really special.”
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