August 9, 2011 | 4:08 pm

Israelis in Los Angeles show solidarity with tent movement in Israel

Posted by Ryan Torok

Follow JewishJournal.com on

Israelis in Los Angeles show their support for Israelis who have been protesting all across Israel for roughly the past three weeks against rising costs of living and goods in Israel. Photo by Eyal Shirel.

On Sunday, August 7, Israelis in Los Angeles congregated at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, CA, and showed their support for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been protesting all across Israel for roughly the past three weeks against rising costs of living and goods in Israel.

The rally at Woodley Park on Sunday drew approximately 200 people, including Ashkenazi and Sephardic Israelis and Ethiopian-Israelis, from 2 to 6 p.m., according to Dekel Sofer, a 31-year-old Israeli in Los Angeles who organized the demonstration with his three friends, Eyal Shairel, Dror Dagan, Miki Granot.

For Israelis living in Los Angeles “it’s easy to say how bad it is over there, and how expensive everything is, but we have to do something as well, and that’s why decided to do that,” Sofer said of Sunday’s rally.

The demonstrators at Woodley Park sent up camping tents to recreate the scenes that have transpired on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, and they sat in the tents, sang, chanted and waved signs.

L.A.-based party promoter Liami Lawrence, who lived in Israel during the eighties, attended the rally, and he praised the movement in Israel and the rally at Woody Park for their diversity.

“It’s across the board. Israelis from right and left [and] it has nothing to do with politics. No one is screaming down with Bibi or up the Labor and communism. It’s all Israelis, regardless of if you’re left or right, religious or non-religious.

“[And] that’s what was amazing about the rally [on Sunday], because we had all different types of people there,” said Lawrence.

Haaretz reported on Tuesday, August 9 that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s appointed team of economic and social experts has decided to hold discussions over the Internet with protestors in Israel. Protestors in Tel Aviv suspended “music parties, performances or entertainment” on Tuesday in observance of Tisha B’Av, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Woodley Park is a familiar site to the Israeli community in Los Angeles. In past years, the Israel Independence Day Festival has taken place there.

Rallies in solidarity with the demonstrators in Israel have also taken place in New York and Washington D.C. The Los Angeles rally’s organizers publicized the event on Facebook.