For the 16th year, amateur ham radio operator Steve Ostrove will coordinate volunteers who use their radios to link those directing the Salute to Israel Parade up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
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Stepping outMay 29, 2008
In an age of high-tech communications, Sunday’s Salute to Israel Parade still depends on a technology that’s decidedly old school.
When an expected 100,000 marchers stream up Fifth Avenue to mark Israel’s 60th birthday, Steve Ostrove of Elizabeth will head up a team of between 15 and 20 fellow ham radio operators from around New Jersey and New York.
Connecting with one another through a net control station, using their handheld radios and headphones, they will convey information between the parade director and coordinators, the people at the starting line, and others manning the announcement booths along the route.
Sometimes, Ostrove said, the “hams” help lost kids find their parents — though usually they hand that kind of crisis over to the police.
For the most part their duties are more light-hearted.
“We have fun — it’s a riot,” he said last week. “We let everyone know who’s coming next, which group and which props and which celebrities. We also provide ‘shadows’ to accompany the VIPs.”
By profession, Ostrove is a biochemist, working as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. But radio communication has been a leisure-time passion since he was 16. He got his ham radio license in 1962, when he was a junior in high school, and the hams’ shortwave radio spectrum, decades before the Internet, was one of the few ways regular folk could communicate instantaneously with fellow hobbyists around the world.
“I was at science camp in Ithaca, and we had a class where they taught what we needed to know to take the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] test — all the rules and regulations controlling electronic communication,” he said.
It opened up a world of friendship for him, with people around the country and in countries around the world. For the most part, it is about enjoyment, but during emergencies, ham radio — and now amateur television — operators can still play a crucial backup role to emergency management organizations. “It’s not all fun and games,” he said.
Ostrove is the section emergency coordinator for the northern New Jersey region, covering an area that reaches south to Monmouth County. On 9/11, directly after the World Trade Center was hit by terrorists, he swung into action, helping to coordinate around 250 ham radio operators. They helped the Red Cross and Salvation Army direct people whose homes were uninhabitable or who couldn’t get to their homes to nine shelters in New Jersey and 24 in New York.
A couple of years before that, he said, they helped with the response to Hurricane Floyd and, more recently, when a propane tank exploded in Newton.
Ostrove and his fellow operators also help with other big events, like the annual New York City Marathon. For that, they bring in about 400 radio volunteers.
For the Israel parade, they need far fewer. Some team members are Jewish, some are not, and many have been covering the parade — like Ostrove — year after year.
His connection with the Salute to Israel Parade has a family dimension. His wife, Karen, retired from her job teaching art at the Jewish Educational Center, the Orthodox network of schools in Elizabeth. A Jewish children’s book author and illustrator, she is still involved in creating banners and placards for its students to carry in the parade. (See They love a parade, and sharing their handicraft) This year’s parade is on her birthday — a shared celebration, she said, of Israel’s 60th birthday and her own.
Like his wife, Steve Ostrove has big intentions of “retiring” from his work with the parade, but hasn’t yet found anyone to take over from him.
“But no one’s indispensable,” he insisted.
Stepping out
THE SALUTE to Israel Parade on Sunday, June 1, will begin at 11 a.m. at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It will continue up Fifth Avenue to 79th Street, ending at around 4:30 p.m.
The parade will be opened by a blast from 60 shofars and will close with 60 motorcycle riders bearing the Israeli flag.
In addition to all the school, community, and synagogue groups — with their colorful posters, decorative floats, and lively marching bands — this year’s parade will also feature a plethora of dancers — including Russian ballet, Bukharan, Georgian, and Israeli folk — and what is billed as the largest hora circle in the world since 1948. There will be strolling violin players and klezmer bands, street performers, clowns, jugglers, and face painters.
The Empire State Building will be lit in blue and white during the entire weekend of the parade.
A contingent representing the Central New Jersey community, organized by the Israel Support Committee, will join the parade. Marchers will leave for Manhattan from Temple Emanu-El in Westfield and from Congregation Beth Israel in Scotch Plains (check for seat availability). The cost is $10 for adults, $5 for children under 16. It includes an official parade T-shirt, lunch, snacks, and drinks. For more information, call Conrad Nadell at 908-531-8228 or 908-654-3169.
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