Despite a driving rain that forced ceremonies accompanying the annual Clifton Israeli flag raising to be moved inside, and the appearance of some unwelcome protestors, a large crowd turned out to celebrate Israel’s 75th birthday.

The April 30 event drew 150 people who heard Clifton Mayor Ray Grabowski and Passaic Mayor Hector Lora deliver remarks, as did Rabbi Emeritus Solomon Rybak of Adas Israel in Passaic. Other speakers included Yuval Donio-Gideon, consul for public diplomacy at the Consulate General of Israel in New York.

Rabbi Mordechai Becher, an Australian-born author and senior lecturer for the Gateways Organization, former IDF chaplain and instructor of Jewish history and philosophy at Yeshiva University, raised the flag. Israeli comedian and IDF veteran Avi Fisher entertained. Lily Goodman D’Amato sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikvah.”

Steve Goldberg, the event’s coordinator for more than 20 years, said this year it was dedicated to the memory of Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia and Rina Dee, murdered in a terrorist attack in the West Bank in early April.

Protestors from Neturei Karta, the notoriously anti-Zionist fringe chasidic sect who believe Jews can only be restored to Israel after God brings about the Messiah, came to protest but stayed outside. “Their chants were drowned out by the singing of ‘Hatikvah,’” said Goldberg.