State Sen. Tom Kean will be among the attendees at a United Nations rally intended to urge action on the fate of three kidnapped Israeli soldiers.

The aim of the rally, to be held outside UN headquarters in Manhattan on Monday, July 16, is to voice outrage over the capture of Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev and to demand their release.

Goldwasser's wife, Karnit, and his mother, Miki, are also planning to be there, as are a number of Jewish community and political leaders representing central New Jersey and other regions.

"It's incredibly important to keep international attention on the plight of these three brave soldiers," said Kean (R-Dist. 21), in an interview with NJJN earlier this week.

Students from the YM-YWHA of Union County gathered in Manhattan last July to show their support for Israel just after the start of its war with Hizbullah. Photos by Elaine Durbach

Kean spearheaded the passage by the state legislature last month of a resolution calling on the UN to intervene to free the three Israelis, the first of its kind by a state. He said that resolution had been passed on to the UN and to Washington.

Goldwasser and Regev were kidnapped by Hizbullah fighters last July 12 while patrolling the border with Lebanon. Shalit was abducted by Palestinian gunmen June 25, 2006, in an attack near the Gaza Strip.

"We need to keep up the momentum, to encourage other states to pass this kind of legislation, and to put pressure on Congress if it isn't moving quickly enough on this — and I don't believe it is, and to keep the issue at the forefront of people's minds," Kean said.

June Walker, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, will be speaking at the rally. In a statement last week, she said that "liberating captives is an obligation that we bear as Jews, as supporters of the State of Israel, and for humanitarian reasons. We brought tens of thousands of people into the streets last year, when the three soldiers were captured by Hamas and Hizbullah. Since then we have raised their plight, and that of Israel's other MIAs, in meetings with leaders of our government, of foreign governments, and of the United Nations.

"On Monday we will mark the anniversary of their kidnapping with a mass demonstration in front of the United Nations to demand their freedom and freedom for all Israeli MIAs. We have not forgotten and we will not forget. I encourage everyone to join us in sending this important message to the members of the UN and to the soldiers' families."

A bus, sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey's Jewish Community Relations Council, is heading into New York for the rally from the Wilf Jewish Community Campus in Scotch Plains. If enough people sign up, the bus will also pick up supporters at the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth.

Another bus will be taking campers and counselors from the YM-YWHA in Union County, Union. Last July, around 30 Y campers attended the rally in Manhattan that was called just after Israel's war with Hizbullah erupted in the aftermath of the kidnappings. Another pro-Israel rally at the UN on Sept. 20 also drew a crowd from New Jersey.

At a rally following Israel's war with Hizbullah last September, a contingent from Central NJ gathered to call for the release of Israeli soldiers Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev.

Bryan Fox, executive vice president of the Y, said that despite the cost involved, there was no hesitation about the Federation sending in the bus. "This is an opportunity for our young people to show their support for Israel. I wish more were able to go, but other events had been scheduled before we knew about the rally."

Felice Maranz, director of the Central federation's JCRC, described the rally as an opportunity for members of the Jewish community to come out and make visible their support for Israel, as well as to convey their ongoing concern for the captive Israelis.

"The redemption of captives has been a Jewish value for thousands of years," she said. "This is a very powerful issue for us, the value we place on individual lives."

Unlike fighters captured in the course of a war, she said, the three men were seized on Israeli soil by kidnappers who sneaked into the country for that purpose. Immediately after their capture, a poster with huge pictures of Goldwasser and Regev was erected just over the Lebanese border to taunt the Israeli forces stationed on the other side, but since then there has been no word of their fate.

Hizbullah has refused to provide the soldiers' families with any information on their well-being or whereabouts, or to engage officially in any kind of negotiations on their behalf.

Hamas, which claimed responsibility for Shalit's capture, recently released a videotape of him, marking his one year in captivity. Though nothing has been acknowledged officially, negotiations are said to be underway about possible deals to secure his release.

In the absence of direct communication, those campaigning on their behalf have addressed their appeals to the United Nations, and to whoever might have channels of communication with their captors.

Karnit Goldwasser has pleaded at the very least to be told whether the soldiers are still alive. Speaking at the federation's Main Event in May, she said this kind of kidnapping was not just the victims' concern. "It is a problem for the free world, for the Jewish community, for everyone," she said.