Convention crashers marched to faint echo of 1960s

PHILADELPHIA -- Some 300 protestors chained themselves together, and sat down in the middle of Broad Street Tuesday in an act of civil disobedience.

The protesters, arms bound behind their backs with plastic police ties, were dragged or carried one-by-one by police onto a gray Philadelphia sheriff's van.

Other skirmishes between police and protestors were also reported, after two days of civil protests across the city that were timed to coincide with the Republican National Convention.

The scene was quite a contrast to the carnival-like atmosphere along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway last Sunday where several hundred people gathered to rally for a litany of social causes. With music, floats and people in costume, the marchers -- who had a permit to demonstrate -- lined the street for what was billed as the largest protest to be held during the Republican National Convention.

With some chanting "Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! George Bush Has Got to Go!" the protesters attending UNITY 2000 marched while carrying banners both advocating and objecting to issues they feel conflict with the Republican platform, including: ending the death penalty, welfare reforms and urban sprawl, and advancing women's and gay and lesbian rights. They wore stickers and arm badges that proclaimed "Robin Hood was right" and "pro-choice."

They were young and old, white and black, socialist and communist, Jewish and non-Jewish. All hoped to make a point.

Among those who participated was 21-year-old Lila Foldes. "My basic message is "regardless of race or class, a person is part of America -- something neither party understands," said Foldes. "I get my justification for this from Torah and the idea that we're all created in God's image."

Elliott Tepperman, a student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, wore a sign that read "Rabbis for the revolution," and came to promote a similar message.

"The revolution," he explained, "is in opposition to corporate greed and in favor of a free democratic society, concerned with compassion and meeting the needs of all of its citizens."

A large number of protesters were calling for the release of a Pennsylvania death row inmate, Mumia Abu Jamal, and rallying against police brutality. Among them was Sharon Eolis, a Jewish woman from New York.

"Prisons are concentration camps for the poor," she said, adding that "[Mumia] is, by definition, a revolutionary."

Abortion was also a big issue at the rally.

"Another pregnant rabbi for choice" was the message Yohanna Kinberg, now in her eighth month, displayed on her sign.

Kinberg, who is studying to be a rabbi at RRC, made her way up the parkway along with some other students from the seminary. She believes abortion rights are integral to the struggle for religious liberty.

Also, she argued, "As a Jew, our tradition teaches that the fetus is not a full human being until it's born."

Nearly 30 campers from Camp Galil, a Habonim Dror camp in Bucks County, Pa., also attended the rally.

"People Before Profits," read the group's banner.

"I thinks it's great we have the unity we have," said Hannah Mermelstein, who was holding the banner with a fellow camper. "The main message is unity, that we all have separate messages but can come together."

Said Elayne Blender, a member of the Germantown Jewish Centre, "We just want the representatives and the public to know we're concerned about a lot of things, and that a lot of things need to be changed."

"It isn't so much [that] one individual voice is heard," commented Michelle Marks, a member of Congregation Mishkan Shalom, "but that we're sending a group message."

Rosalind Spigel, Philadelphia-area director of the Jewish Labor Committee, who attended the rally with her 3-year-old son, Jacob, said that while she didn't agree with all the rally goers and their messages, "I think each person has an obligation to express their own voice, but we can all have a bigger impact if we're heard together."