New York City Police Department officers ride in the Israel Day on Fifth parade in Manhattan, carrying an array of flags, May 31, 2026. Photo courtesy of the NYPD. This year’s Israel Day on Fifth parade, held on May 31, was large, joyful and proud after two years of more-somber events focused on freeing Israeli hostages from Gaza. More than 50,000 people, organizers said, marched slowly up New York’s storied Fifth Avenue, including more than 70 groups from Jewish schools near and far, ranging from Manhattan’s pluralistic Heschel School to Philadelphia’s Modern Orthodox Kohelet Yeshiva and a Baltimore day school.

Students, Bikers, Mummers

Who knew that there is a yeshiva with a marching band and pom-pom girls? Brooklyn’s Yeshiva of Flatbush came out in force with students playing drums and brass instruments, and female students waved blue-and-white pom-poms. There was the Jewish motorcycle club Chai Riders, whose members slowly motored up the avenue. Some wore their leathers, and one biker had a large Israeli flag waving from the back of his kosher hog. Another wrapped There was also a large contingent of Mummers, from the Quaker City String Band in Philadelphia, who wore fantastically decorated sequinned outfits, replete with headdresses and full make-up, while playing upbeat tunes on saxophone, banjo and accordion. The marching contingent from UJA-Federation of New York was very large, as main sponsor of the parade, with marchers wearing the organization’s t-shirts bearing their home location on the back—Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Westchester among them. Many carried signs stating “proud New Yorkers, proud Zionists.” Jews in uniform led the day’s procession, including the New York City Fire Department’s Ner Tamid Society, and the New York City Police Department’s Shomrim Society, all in formal dress. A little boy sat on his father’s shoulders, wearing his dad’s fire department dress uniform hat. Detective Joshua Zucker came in from his precinct in Marine Park, Brooklyn, one of about 300 members of the NYPD’s Shomrim Society, he told JNS. Jordan Natan, a Class 1 special law enforcement officer, came from Hackensack, N.J., with special permission from his higher-ups. “ Lieutenant Shevach Bercovitz, who goes by the nickname Shevy, is based in Mineola, Long Island, and formerly led the Nassau County Police Department Shomrim Society. He is in charge of pre-arraignment prisoner processing, he said. His uniform had several colorful bars showing his Jewish identity and involvement in crises, including Hurricane Sandy. New York City Council member Eric Dinowitz, who is chairman of the body’s Jewish caucus and is co-chairman of its bipartisan task force on Jew-hatred, mingled among the day’s marchers. He has participated for many years—the first time on a float with the Jewish a cappella group 613, of which he was then a member, he told JNS. He’s been marching annually since he was elected to the City Council representing part of the Bronx six years ago. “Thousands and thousands of New Yorkers are marching to show their solidarity with the very idea of a democratic Jewish state,” Dinowitz told JNS mid-parade. “It is a beautiful sight to behold. We are more than just our traumas of our history and skyrocketing anti-Semitism.”