Ever since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, a hardy group of Israel supporters have gathered on an overpass above Highway 24 in Lafayette several times a week. They wave Israeli flags and hold signs demanding an immediate release of all the hostages held in Gaza.
Now a second vigil has joined theirs — on a bridge in Berkeley.
For two hours on Sunday afternoon, some 70 people converged on the University Avenue overpass above Interstate 80. Like the Lafayette demonstrators, the Berkeley contingent held up Israeli and American flags, hung banners calling for the return of the hostages and shouted “Bring them home now!” through megaphones at the passing traffic.
It was the second time the group gathered in Berkeley. The first time was three weeks earlier on April 14, said co-organizer Tamir Kalwary, 37, an Israeli expat living in Berkeley. He suggested the idea to his friend David Holsey, 51, of Hayward, whom he met several years ago at a pro-Israel rally.
The two didn’t expect anyone besides themselves to show up the first time, but about 30 people did. This weekend’s event drew more than double that number.
“A lot of pro-Israel people are afraid to come to Berkeley,” said Holsey. “Lafayette is a safer environment if you’re on the Israeli side.”
Nevertheless, the honking from passing cars and trucks was almost nonstop, as drivers showed support. Now and then, an angry shout came from a car or a middle finger was raised out of a car window, but that was the exception.
“It leads me to believe there’s more positive support for Israel than people might think,” Holsey said. It’s just that most people aren’t activists, he added.
“That’s a big part of why we’re doing it,” he said. “It’s a show of solidarity with Israel, but we’re also trying to show support for people who are scared, Jews and non-Jews, people who support Israel but don’t want to be vocal about it.”
It was a sunny afternoon, and spirits were high. Those on the bridge were elderly and young, parents with children, couples and singles, Israelis and Americans. One counter-protester showed up, a woman who marched back and forth on the middle of the bridge, calling herself Native American and saying that one of the protesters hit her with a flag. Holsey said nothing had happened. Berkeley police showed up and took statements from both sides.
Rabbi Nosson Potash of Chabad of Cole Valley in San Francisco was there, with seven of his children. He helped some Jewish men lay tefillin that he’d brought, though his children seemed more excited by the demonstration.
“We were at the big march against antisemitism” in San Francisco, two of them shouted at once, beaming and looking around at the crowd.
Evyn Love, 41 and a preschool teacher at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, stood with an Israeli flag and chatted with a woman nearby.
“I’m here because I feel safe in Jewish spaces, and it breaks my heart that I can’t say that about all the queer spaces,” Love told J.
Circumstances shifted after Oct. 7 for Love, who uses they/them pronouns. If you’d told Love a year ago that they wouldn’t feel comfortable in the East Bay queer community, they would have scoffed.
Now Love has different friends. “That’s what’s so great about this,” Love said. “It builds community.”
Holsey said he hears comments like that a lot. Calling himself “definitely left of center, not a Republican,” he said that he can’t understand how people in the LGBTQ community have joined the anti-Israel movement. “It’s like Black people for the Confederacy,” he said, shaking his head.
Berkeley resident Bella Barany, 87, had her arms high above her head as she tried to hold a large Israeli flag up against a chain-link fence along the side of the overpass. “I’m pushing it into the holes with my fingers,” she explained.
A regular at Berkeley City Council meetings since Oct. 7, where she speaks in support of Israel, Barany is about to make aliyah to join her married daughter, who lives on the Golan Heights. “I love Israel, and I want a safe Israel,” she said.
Holsey said he was pleased with the turnout.
“It’s a pretty safe bet we’ll do it again,” he said. The group has no website or social-media account. Instead, it networks among friends via WhatsApp to let them know when a vigil is happening. He is scheduling them so as not to conflict with the Lafayette vigil, which takes place from noon to 2 p.m. Several people, like himself, attended both.
“The Lafayette thing is great,” he said. “But once in a while, it’s a good idea to put out the message where people aren’t used to seeing it.”