MONTREAL — A steady rain and the explosions at the Boston Marathon a day earlier may have put a slight damper on total numbers, but not spirits, as thousands gathered April 16 to celebrate Israel’s 65th birthday at Place du Canada on Yom Ha’atzmaut.
Israel and Quebec’s blue and white mixed with Canadian red as throngs of Israel well-wishers of all ages disembarked from dozens of buses at Phillips Square and adorned themselves with flags before following a flatbed truck topped with musicians and dancers to the final destination.
“Shalom Yisrael!” Israeli Consul-General Joël Lion shouted to celebrants from the stage.
The country is 65, “but don’t worry, we are not retiring.” Lion said. “We are not going on pension. We are [still] building a country.”
Radio station CJAD placed the numbers in the crowd at 3,000, while a photo caption in the Gazette said it was 12,000, the usual total cited by “Jewish Unity Partnership” organizers.
But Jewish school officials acknowledged that some parents did decide to keep their kids from the rally because of the inclement weather and security concerns in the wake of the Boston tragedy.
Also appearing fewer in number at Phillips Square were the usual contingent of anti-Zionist Chassidim who assemble to exhort celebrants to wait for the Messiah before making a Jewish state.
Whatever the total figure, the overall mood was as festive as ever.
Lion danced a few steps with the show’s star attraction, 37-year-old Israeli rapper and hip-hop star SHI 360, and a jumbo video screen on the grounds conveyed a happy birthday Israel message from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The VIP seats in the first rows next to the stage included Jewish community organization leaders, as well as Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum, Liberal MPs Marc Garneau and Irwin Cotler, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough mayors Alan DeSousa and Lionel Perez, and municipal representatives from Hampstead and Cote St. Luc.
SHI 360, wearing a black T-shirt with the word “kasher” in Hebrew on it, was all energy as the rain steadily worsened. The rapper, born in Tunisia, lived in Montreal for about a decade, and made aliyah after getting his university degree.
At the rally, SHI 360 performed some of his best-known hits, including Peace in the Middle East and Break the Silence. He later joined Lion, Beth Israel Beth Aaron Rabbi Reuben Poupko and the crowd in singing Happy Birthday in three languages to Israeli president Shimon Peres, who turns 90 in August.
The screen also displayed the results of a friendly contest between Bialik and Herzliah high schools to produce the best promotional plug for the rally (Herzliah won).
Rabbi Poupko, the event’s only other speaker besides Lion, referred to the day as “the 65th anniversary of the renewal of the Jewish People.”
A country that began with 600,000, many of them Holocaust survivors, now flourishes at eight million, he said.
“If you love freedom, you love Israel. If you love democracy, you love Israel. If you believe in hope, you love Israel, and if you are a Zionist, as we all are, you love Israel.”