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Whether it was educating local students or going as far as getting arrested to make a statement, central New Jersey's Jewish leaders showed their passion at protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the latest United Nations General Assembly.

In an attempt to block Ahmadinejad's entrance to the U.N. Sept. 23, Rabbi Yerachmiel Shapiro of Congregation Beth Shalom in Red Bank joined a group of 100 rabbis from New Jersey and New York who clogged 1st Avenue in Manhattan. Police ordered the crowd to move, but Shapiro was among about 20 rabbis who were handcuffed and escorted to the police wagon for refusing to budge.

"It's mainly a message to the whole world that it's a sick and sad irony that rabbis are being arrested while sick and strange minds are speaking freely at the U.N.," Shapiro said.

The rabbis were able to delay Ahmadinejad's entrance for a few minutes, Shapiro said. When they were taken to the police wagon, their "hearts kind of sunk a little bit" in anticipation of a trip to central booking, which Shapiro said would have meant a 24-36 hour prison stay.

However, the rabbis went instead to a local precinct, and when police saw they had no prior arrests, they were let off with tickets for disorderly conduct and went right back to rallying near the U.N. The lieutenant at the precinct even told the rabbis that Ahmadinejad should be stopped and that he believed in the statement they made, Shapiro said.

"To be honest, I think we could've done more," Shapiro said.

The Solomon Schechter Academy of Ocean and Monmouth Counties in Howell brought a group of 7th-grade students to the following day's Stand for Freedom in Iran rally, held at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 2nd Avenue and 47th Street and sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

Schechter students joined thousands of attendees who protested Iran's nuclear program, treatment of citizens, threats to wipe Israel off the map, and various other aspects of Ahmadinejad's government. Given Ahmadinejad's well-documented denials of the Holocaust, it was the perfect field trip for 7th graders who focus on Holocaust studies and routinely discuss world news in class.

"They are way up to date on the currents events and what's up in the world today, for sure," their teacher, Estelle Cohen, said.

Stella Stanway, a Schechter board member, joined a group of students that included her daughter Sara.

"We are teaching them a love of Israel, now they get to practice it," Stanway said.

Danny Goldberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Ocean County, said that attending the rally gave Schechter students the chance to realize that "as day school students they are part of a much larger group of kids and Jewish people who are strongly in support of Israel and human rights, and had this opportunity to participate in these kinds of public demonstrations."

Howard Gases, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County, also commended Schechter for letting students join the local federations for the event.

"It's important to bring people out to support this important cause," Gases said, adding that the rally was not a Jewish issue, but rather "an issue of decent mankind."

The federation's presence at the rally was an important way of "standing united as an American Jewish community" to support the organizations who are opposed to oppression in Iran and to the threat that Iran poses to Israel and the West, Goldberg said. The federation will continue these kinds of efforts as long as they are necessary, he said.

"It's unfortunate that for the past five years now we have really no choice but to come to show our displeasure at the U.N., whether it's a rally to free Gilad Shalit and other kidnapped Israeli soldiers or to protest the appearance of people like Ahmadinejad and [Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi, and to make sure that we are participants with the rest of the American Jewish Community in making it clear that these people are not fooling anybody when they attempt to come to the U.N. as representatives of civilized countries," Goldberg said.

Barbara Spack, a 30-year board member of Hadassah and a life trustee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, represented both organizations at the rally. Spack has been attending rallies throughout her life and recalled bringing along her children in carriages when they were younger.

"It just wouldn't dawn on me not to go," Spack said.

While standing amidst a group of fervently pro-Israel Christians at the group, Spack was inspired by their support and by the rally's clergy speakers who were often more vociferous than many of the Jewish speakers, she said.

"It's wonderful to see them feeling as strongly as we do [about Israel]," Spack said.