Between brunch, tefillin, and fifty thousand proud marchers, I found something social media rarely permits: nuance, coexistence, and a community refusing to disappear.
Sunday started exactly the way New Yorkers dream Sundays should start.
My wife and I grabbed brunch downtown at Croft Alley. We shared a breakfast burrito and almond flour banana pancakes, because marriage, at least a successful one, is largely the art of splitting calories and pretending you’re making healthy decisions while drowning everything in maple syrup.
It was one of those perfect Manhattan mornings. The city felt alive without feeling angry. A rare accomplishment these days.
Then we headed home.
Only there was one small complication.
The Israel Day Parade had transformed Fifth Avenue into a sea of blue and white, Israeli flags, American flags, families, music, celebration, security barricades, and enough pride to power the city for a month.
Every few blocks a young Chabadnik stopped me.
“Have you laid tefillin today?”
For those unfamiliar, tefillin are small black leather boxes containing Torah verses, worn during morning prayers as a reminder of faith, obligation, and connection to G-d.
I smiled.
“No, but I appreciate you asking.”
Another block. Another young man. Same question. Another block. Same question.
I began wondering whether there was some secret Chabad group text circulating with my photograph.
As I walked through the crowd, one thing became immediately clear. This wasn’t merely a parade.
It was a statement.
A statement by more than 50,000 marchers and tens of thousands more spectators that Jewish identity would not be hidden, muted, apologized for, or intimidated into silence.
And frankly, after the past several years, that’s significant.
The atmosphere wasn’t angry. It wasn’t militant. It wasn’t political in the way cable news defines politics.
It was families.
Children.
Grandparents.
Schools.
Synagogues.
Marching bands.
Flags.
Community.
People determined to celebrate who they are despite living through a period where many Jews increasingly feel isolated, targeted, and misunderstood.
You could feel it in the crowd.
The smiles.
The conversations.
The handshakes.
And yes, the occasional glare.
My presence did not exactly go unnoticed.
A few people nodded. A few stared. A few came over to shake my hand.
One young Orthodox man approached me and asked:
“Are you the famous Cohen?”
Without missing a beat, I replied:
“No. You’re thinking of Mickey Cohen, the famous gangster. I’m the second most famous Cohen.”
Thankfully, he laughed.
At least I think he laughed.
With New Yorkers it’s sometimes hard to tell.
What was harder to miss, however, was who wasn’t there.
New York’s newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, broke with decades of tradition by refusing to attend.
In my opinion, that was a political mistake.
Not because attendance requires agreement with every policy of every Israeli government.
It doesn’t.
Not because attendance means endorsing every decision made in Jerusalem.
It doesn’t.
And certainly not because attendance requires abandoning criticism.
It doesn’t.
Attendance means showing up.
Leadership often boils down to a simple principle: be present.
Mayors attend Puerto Rican Day Parades.
They attend Pride marches.
They attend St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
They attend Lunar New Year events.
Not because they agree with every political viewpoint represented in those communities, but because they represent all the people.
Showing up matters.
Especially when many of those people feel vulnerable.
Ironically, some of the most interesting conversations I had all day centered around something many assume would be controversial: a two-state solution.
I’ve long believed that Israelis and Palestinians deserve the same thing every human being deserves: security, dignity, and self-determination.
When I asked parade attendees about the prospect of two states living side by side, I expected resistance.
Instead, I encountered something far more nuanced.
Many agreed.
Many supported the concept.
What they questioned wasn’t the morality of peace.
It was the feasibility.
Again and again, I heard variations of the same response.
“We’d love peace.”
“We just don’t know how to get there.”
That’s an important distinction.
Because cynicism has become one of the most dangerous political forces in the world.
Not hatred.
Not extremism.
Cynicism.
The belief that problems are unsolvable.
The belief that enemies can never become neighbors.
The belief that conflict is permanent.
History teaches us otherwise.
Every peace agreement in human history seemed impossible right before it happened.
As I watched thousands of people marching under banners proclaiming pride in both America and Israel, I couldn’t help but notice another reality.
The loudest voices are rarely representative.
The people screaming online aren’t the people I met Sunday.
The people reducing everything to slogans aren’t the people shaking hands and having conversations.
Most people are far more thoughtful than social media allows them to appear.
They understand complexity.
They understand grief.
They understand fear.
And many understand that supporting Israel and supporting Palestinian self-determination are not mutually exclusive ideas.
As the parade wound down and the crowds dispersed, I found myself thinking less about politics and more about identity.
About community.
About belonging.
About what happens when people gather publicly to celebrate who they are rather than hide it.
That’s what I saw Sunday.
Not perfection.
Not unanimity.
Not ideological conformity.
Just pride.
And in an era increasingly defined by division, outrage, and tribal warfare, that may have been the most refreshing sight of all.
Even if I remain, regrettably, only the second most famous Cohen.