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From an email group that I read:

DEMONSTRATORS AT IRANIAN UN MISSION PROTEST
TEHRAN’S THREAT TO ANNIHILIATE ISRAEL

The students took their history lessons to heart.

Inspired by Rabbi Avi Weiss’ passionate plea never, ever to be silent in the face of threats to
the Jewish people, dozens of young men and women who have learned about the world’s quiet
during the Holocaust demonstrated with chants, songs and prayer at the Iranian UN Mission in
midtown Manhattan on Tuesday evening. They responded with outrage to a threat by Iranian
president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week to wipe Israel off the map.

The students gathered from the SAR and Frisch Yeshiva High Schools, Yeshiva University and
Stern College. The action was coordinated by Amcha-Coalition for Jewish Concerns. In the
evening dusk along a busy rush hour Third Avenue, the youths lit a half-dozen torches to
symbolize the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, but also danced defiantly, holding up
Israeli and American flags, singing “Am Yisrael Chai! The Jewish people live!” They also held
signs such as “Iran’s Threat to Annihilate Israel Is A Threat To Us All,” referring to Tehran’s
incipient nuclear capability, including rockets which might soon reach from the Mideast to
Europe. They chanted, Stop Iran -- Stop Their Plan!

Holding their signs and flags aloft, the students followed Rabbi Weiss to the doors of the large
lobby of the building housing the Iranian UN Mission. Guards quickly blocked the doors from
opening, but the students pressed up against the huge glass panes of the lobby as a few
demonstrators such as Hillary Markowitz got inside and argued insistently with building officials
that they be allowed upstairs to the Iranian Mission office itself. Rabbi Weiss pointed out that
just as the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires was involved in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish
communal building a decade ago, the Iranian Mission could also be a place where
anti-American plots are being hatched.

A Jewish immigrant from Iran who exited four years ago, identified only as Mordechai, pulled no
punches about the Iranian government. “They are anti-human beings and anti-human rights,”
he declared, while holding a torch and enwrapped in a tallit (prayer shawl). “It is the duty of
everyone who cares about humanity to protest President Ahmadinejad’s threats.”

Rabbi Weiss concluded, “I believe with all my heart that if we speak out, God will cry out with
us, too.”

Amcha-CJC
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10463
Phone: (718)
884-8499
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Email:
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