Two thousand people rallied in support of Israel in Finland yesterday.
The Finnish capital’s streets were filled with Israeli and Finnish flags as participants marched towards the port while chanting slogans in support of the IDF and waving banners protesting what they claimed was the biased media coverage of the flotilla raid.
The protestors also sang “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem (We Brought Peace Upon You)”.
What, are there that many Jews in Finland?
Nope.
Itzik Moyal, an Israeli who lives in Helsinki, estimated that more than 2,000 people took part in the rally. “Most of them are not even Jewish, they came here following a call by a pro-Israeli Christian organization, which coordinated the event with the Jewish community,” he told Ynet.
Okay. Time to seek out Finnish products and start buying them. Suggestions, people?
And oh yeah: Thank you, Finland! (Any videos available?)
You can take a look here: http://www.finnguide.fi/finnish_products_USA/
I’ve bought Finnish cheese before, from my local Safeway. I think there’s a “Finlandia” swiss cheese and maybe some Lappi cheese, also.
There are some Jews in Finland. My older brother, who recently retired from the Foreign Commercial Service, was some years ago at a trade show in Las Vegas. Someone noticed his name tag and asked him if he was any relation to a Bensky family in Helsinki and it turned out that we are.
Speaking of Finland, Meryl, I read a book a few months ago about the Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940. It was, as you probably know, an absolutely unprovoked attack on a neighbor was was willing to do whatever was necessary to show non-aggression towards the Soviet Union. When the Finns sued for peace the Soviets grabbed off a chunk of Karelia and expelled something like 400,000 Karelian Finns, who left with only what they could carry, nothing more.
Curiously, I don’t think any Karelians languish in refugee camps all these years later. Perhaps they are and I’ve missed it; if so, they should start murdering Olympic athletes, blowing up airliners, and sending suicide bombers to St. Petersberg to kill as many innocent civilians as possible. This would undoubtedly attract the sympathetic attention of the world.