AS THEY HEADED toward home through the crowded streets of Manhattan’s East Side, those who had traveled from Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel to last week’s rally for Israel at the United Nations were elated.

Just four hours earlier, they had climbed a bus chartered by their South Orange synagogue with a sense of determination tinged with regret. Only 17 members of their congregation were on board.

But once the rally-goers reached their destination at the front row of a crowd estimated at 35,000, there was no more talk of a weak turnout.

“I thought the rally was very uplifting,” said Yudit Terry of South Orange. “It was wonderful as we walked out to see all the people there who were very enthusiastic about Israel. It felt good to see us united.”

The situation touches Terry in a personal way. She is a native Israeli who moved to the United States in 1972. Her father and cousins live in Netanya, her brother in the MetroWest partner city of Rishon Letzion. Terry visited there while the war raged in August.

“The sadness was palpable,” she said. “Everybody was very sad about the prospects of peace slipping away.”

Ellen Barocas of Cedar Grove, a past president of the Reform congregation and the organizer of the pilgrimage to New York, called the day “exhilarating.”

“I was proud that there was a diversity of people speaking, that we had representation from the Reform movement and many federations,” she said. “The world is seeing the Arab nations who are feeling very emboldened right now. They need to see a strong, together group of Jews. We are fighting for our homeland, and we are in serious trouble. Next time there will be more people. We need to fill New York City. We need to make our voices heard.”

Dan Goldberg of West Orange said he was “overwhelmed with the number of people who were there and the very large number of Christians who were holding signs saying that they were united in support of Israel. I’m not questioning what their motives were, but they were there at the United Nations, and I think it was beneficial to the Jews of America and the populace of Israel.”

Annette Littman of West Orange called the rally “an amazing show of solidarity. Like no other time in history, Israel needs this sense of belonging and that American Jews still care about them.” (Littman is a member of the board of trustees of NJ Jewish News, Goldberg a former trustee.)

Jordyn Barry took the day off from her junior year at Millburn High School to attend. It was the first time she had ever attended a political rally, and what she witnessed was way beyond her expectations.

“I thought it was going to be much smaller,” she said. “But to know there was a ton of people there made me feel like I was making a difference. To know that not only Jewish people care for Israel is really awesome.”

Twenty feet away from the South Orange contingent, at an area near the press section reserved for VIPs, stood Max Kleinman, executive vice president of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ. UJC MetroWest chartered a separate bus that brought more than 40 community members to the rally.

“I was very pleased at the turnout. All the speakers were great,” he said.

But Kleinman was troubled by the warlike attitudes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“What is amazing to me is that the president of Iran, who has publicly called for the destruction of a UN state, has committed a violation of the UN’s charter. It defies my imagination as to how this guy’s being honored all over the place,” said Kleinman. “It is as if Hitler were invited to address the League of Nations in 1939, months before World War II began. It is very, very disturbing to me.”