PATERSON, N.J. (PIX11) -- At Paterson's public Eid celebration, there was Middle Eastern music pumping out of the loudspeakers, ice cream being served out of a truck rented for the occasion, and halal meals coming out in rapid succession from a food truck. Kids played in a bouncy house, as a pint-sized train ferried other children around the grounds of a street and adjacent schoolyard that were closed off for the event. Despite the fun and festive atmosphere, though, there was a thread of palpable somberness.
"We kept talking about canceling because of what's been happening overseas," said Mayor André Sayegh about the Eid event that he and his administration organized.
Paterson has one of the highest percentages of population in the country that's Muslim, and many of its Muslim residents are Palestinian. Some of them have family members in Gaza now, facing famine, destruction of their homes, or worse.
The situation caused city leaders to question whether or not to hold the event. What led them to proceed, the mayor said, was that they considered what the Eid holiday means to children.
Eid celebrates the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and, said, Mayor Sayegh, going ahead with the public celebration sends a message.
"We're letting all children of God know," the mayor said on Wednesday at the start of the event, "in Paterson, we stand for equality. We stand for peace."
The joyousness of the occasion was definitely not lost on the children in attendance.
Saleh Sawabha stood next to his older sister, Saweh, as he expressed emotion over the gifts that were given out to the children in attendance.
"It's been amazing!" he exclaimed, as he talked about the toys that the city gave out as part of the event. "I got a whole drone," he said. "So it's been amazing!"
Jenna Abdallah and her twin sister, Hala, were also among the hundreds of children at the festival who enjoyed the event created for them.
"It's great to see everyone being happy, and, like, everyone with their families, eating and having fun," Jenna said.
The twin 14-year-olds were wearing identical traditional Palestinian outfits they'd bought in Jordan the last time they'd been in that Middle Eastern country.
Like so many people at the festival on Michigan Avenue, the Abdallah family has ties to Palestine. Many festival-goers have family members in Gaza. They said that they're deeply concerned, and appreciate that this holiday is a chance to promote peace among a wide variety of people.
Jabeen Ahmed is a doctor who's practiced in Paterson for 30 years. Her in-laws are from Gaza.
She said that the beauty of being in North Jersey on Eid is that a wide spectrum of people are endorsing the peaceful tenets of Eid.
"I got about a hundred messages [saying] 'Eid Mubarak' this morning," she said, "and at least half of them are either [from] Jewish or Christian [friends]. They're not even Muslim. So I think that we're very unified on a humanitarian and a human level."
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