MONTREAL — Imagine 14,000 people dancing the horah in downtown Montreal. That’s the challenge Ariela Cotler and Amos Sochaczevski, co-chairs of this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut rally, have set for Montreal’s Jewish community and everyone else who wants to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary.
The rally takes place May 8, beginning at Phillips Square at 11 a.m., then proceeding along René Lévesque Boulevard to Place du Canada, where the giant horah is to begin.
The organizers want to break the existing record for the biggest similar folk dance, which was set in Romania in January 2006, when 13,8000 people joined hands and kicked up their feet.
The Consortium of Jewish Organizations (COJO) has made an application to the Guinness World Records, and an adjudicator will be present on stage May 8 to decide if Montreal will give the Romanians the boot.
The planned horah will not be one continuous circle of dancers, but a series of concentric circles, with veteran Israeli folkdance teacher Peter Smolash leading the way.
As the first marchers enter Place du Canada from René Lévesque, they will be met by about 150 people already there, forming the nucleus of an ever-widening circle.
According to Guinness rules, the full complement of participants must dance and sing together for at least 10 minutes. Two popular songs that everyone knows will be chosen.
Cotler believes it is doable, even if it means having to double the number of participants in last year’s rally.
Nine free buses for the public will be going downtown from around the city, including the West Island and Chomedey. Out-of-towners are also being transported from Sherbrooke, Kingston and possibly Ottawa and Burlington, Vt.
In addition, a bus will be provided to any institution or group that can assure that it will send at least 35 to 40 people, Cotler said.
This year, all the mainstream Jewish day schools are taking part, and virtually every synagogue is on board.
Cotler said every Jewish organization, “from the smallest to the largest,” was invited to join COJO, and it has representation from a broad spectrum of the community.
“Thirty-five to 40 people are coming to our [organizing] meetings,” she said.
The event is being underwritten by a group of individuals, as well as a grant – for about 10 per cent of the cost – from Federation CJA, she said. Groups that can afford to are being invited to rent their own bus.
The federation initiated the downtown rally in 2002, in the worst days of the second intifadah and in the gloomy wake of 9/11. When it decided to drop the event in 2006 in favour of smaller neighbourhood activities, many people were disappointed.
Last year, Cotler, a longtime community volunteer, and Sochaczevski, a businessman, decided to organize a grassroots event, which, in fact, was dubbed the “People’s Rally.”
Cotler stressed how important a public display of support for Israel is at this time.
“This is a very difficult time for Israel. This summer and fall, it will be facing a lot of political pressure, and the security situation is worsening in Sderot, Ashkelon and the north,” she said.
“The mood in the country is very, very down. People feel they are under attack,” added Cotler, who was born in Israel and spends a good part of the year there.
“For us also, as Jews, it gives us a good feeling to do this.”
Adds Bill Surkis, a co-ordinator of the rally: “[Former U.S. president] John F. Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ We should know that Israel is our security blanket, a bulwark against another Holocaust, our spiritual and cultural home. Every single Jew should get out to this rally to show forcefully our support for Israel.”
Cotler said she is not concerned about counter-demonstrators who may be attracted in larger numbers this year because it is a landmark anniversary of the state’s founding. The police handled security very well last year, she said, and there were no incidents, and she is confident they will keep the differing parties separate.
Rally participants will be instructed not to argue with or engage in any way with the critics of Israel, she said.
The rest of the program had not been finalized at time of writing, but Cotler said the aim is to keep the number of presentations minimal and brief.
Everyone on the buses will be invited to sign a commemorative page of the day that will be bound into a book and eventually brought to Israel and presented, possibly, to Israeli President Shimon Peres.
