From JPost:

5th Avenue goes blue-and-white for salute to Israel parade

New York Jewry put on its biggest annual show of support for Israel on Sunday with tens of thousands of people crowding onto Manhattan's Fifth Avenue to watch or march in the 41st annual Salute to Israel Parade.

The East Side street turned into a river of blue-and-white flags on what was a brilliantly sunny day, while on the sidelines many parade-goers wore orange T-shirts to demonstrate their solidarity with Gaza's settlers.

The march was followed by a concert in Central Park that doubled as a political rally in support of Gaza's Jews and against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan...

After the parade, a stream of orange made its way for about a mile through Central Park to the site of the concert, where women sunning themselves in bikinis jockeyed for spots on the expansive lawn with men clad in white shirts and dangling tzitzit. Meanwhile, an Orthodox chazzan intoned the El Moleh Rachamim mourning prayer.

Then Orthodox Jewish bands took center stage, and Hasidic and modern Jewish music was interspersed with oratory about the folly of Israel's disengagement plan and words of support for the Jews of Gaza.

One speaker at the concert recited Psalms on the stage, which was festooned with a banner reading, "For the sake of Jerusalem we dare not be silent."

The concert, which also is an annual event, was organized by Joseph Frager, chairman of the board of American Friends of Ateret Cohanim. MKs Effie Eitam and Uzi Landau were expected to deliver speeches, and the concert was broadcast live on an Israeli radio station.

While obviously political demonstrations of a sort, the concert and the parade were also opportunities for New York Jews simply to hang out together and have a good time.

Men with beer guts waved signs reading "Israel, our homeland," a few elderly people clutched miniature Israeli flags as they were pushed in wheelchairs, and young mothers and fathers and their babies seemed to be everywhere. People selling cold drinks did swift business, and the smell of contraband marijuana was in the air in some places.

Rivky Nadler, 17, came to the parade with a few friends both to show her support for Israel and to sell T-shirts in support of Gush Katif for $5 each. She said she had sold almost 100 shirts in a little more than two hours, and ran into only one or two parade-goers who tried to argue with the shirt's message, "Jews don't expel other Jews."