The following are excerpts from various new agencies reporting the event.

The NY Daily News: More than 50,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews congregated in lower Manhattan Sunday to protest Israel’s proposed draft of religious scholars. Sunday’s prayer event brought together a community of New York’s most Orthodox Jews, based in Brooklyn and in the village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, north of the city. The gathering took up a stretch of 10 blocks, with dark-clothed demonstrators standing behind police barricades amid tight security. Organizers kept to tradition, with men and women in separate groups as they are at religious events.

WPIX 11: Thousands of Orthodox Jews gathered in Lower Manhattan Sunday afternoon to protest proposed draft laws in Israel. The large protest temporarily shut down traffic on Water and Wall Street.

NY Post: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews rallied in Downtown Manhattan on Sunday afternoon to protest proposed new legislation in Israel that would allow them to be drafted into the army there. The demonstrators held a mass prayer service over several blocks near Wall Street starting around 2 p.m. in response to the proposal to draft the strict religious citizens into the army.

WCBSTV / 1010WINS: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews filled the streets in lower Manhattan on Sunday to protest Israel’s proposal to draft strictly religious citizens into its army. The gathering took up a stretch of 10 blocks, with dark-clothed demonstrators standing behind police barricades amid tight security. Organizers kept to tradition, with men and women in separate groups as they are at religious events.

Haaretz (English): Some 50,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews attended Sunday’s ‘Great Prayer Assembly’ in New York to bolster their ’embattled brethren’ in Israel in advance of the upcoming Knesset vote on the controversial legislation. The scene was completely surreal: A crying cantor beseeching the Lord in Yiddish-accented Hebrew to hear his prayers; high-octane loudspeakers amplifying the cry throughout lower Manhattan; tens of thousands of black-coated ultra-Orthodox Jews earnestly repeating the Psalms in the freezing cold; some of New York’s finest, duly exasperated; and the looks of astonishment on the faces of unsuspecting tourists…

Ynet (Hebrew): 150,000 people.

Haaretz (Hebrew): 50,000 people.

Bichadrei Charedim: 150,000 people.

Kikar Shabbat: 150,000 people.

Ladaat: Tens of thousands of people.

JDN: 150,000 people.

SEE PHOTOS OF THE MASSIVE YOM TEFILLAH:

Photo Essay #1: Atzeres Tefillah in Manhattan [Photo Credit JDN – Yossi Goldberger – Dee Voch]

Photo Essay #2: Atzeres Tefillah in Manhattan [Photo Credit JDN – Yossi Goldberger – Dee Voch]

Photo Essay #3: Atzeres Tefillah in Manhattan [Photo Credit JDN – Yossi Goldberger – Dee Voch]

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)