‘Jews against ICE’: Rabbis lead hundreds in mass Jewish protest outside ICE headquarters

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Hundreds of rabbis, cantors and other Jewish demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday (Feb. 11) to whine opposition to the company’s role in President Donald Trump’s ongoing mass deportation effort.

“We’re watching ICE commit heinous acts of violence, of alarm, and it’s designed to rid this nation of the thing that makes us the strongest — that are our immigrant pals and neighbors,” Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum talked about as she addressed the crowd, which stretched down the aspect road.

Kleinbaum, rabbi emerita of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in Original York, added: “We realize it from historical past, and we realize it from God, what is demanded of us in this moment.”

The team then burst into a chant — “Jews against ICE” — repeating it loads of times over the course of the protest.

Kleinbaum’s speech kicked off a more than hourlong demonstration that expressed outrage at the actions of ICE and agents operating beneath the Division of Dwelling of origin Security, adding to growing faith-based totally mostly resistance to the president’s immigration agenda. It also came on the heels of a three-day gathering of rabbis hosted by T’ruah: The Rabbinic Demand Human Rights, and according to protest organizers — which included T’ruah and Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, in addition to more than 50 Jewish organizational sponsors — Wednesday’s occasion used to be the “largest Jewish protest against the crimes and evils dedicated by ICE.”

Protest marshals along the perimeters of the crowd handed out song sheets, in addition to tiny metallic whistles that beget turn into synonymous with resistance to the administration’s mass deportation efforts. In Minneapolis and other cities focused by DHS, activists most frequently blow whistles to warn others at any time when they detect federal agents. 

Participants at the protest, which organizers talked about included more than 100 rabbis alone from in every single build the nation, carried a wide differ of indicators. Some bore references to Scripture, corresponding to Leviticus 24:22: “You shall beget one traditional for stranger and voters alike.” Others had been usual to resemble shofars — a former horn ancient in varied Jewish ceremonies and cherish — emblazoned with slogans corresponding to “Cherish your neighbor” and “this shofar melts ICE.”

Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, who serves because the Jewish and interfaith chaplain at Macalester Faculty in St. Paul, Minnesota, likened whistles to shofars. She authorized that the earlier horn once called other folks “to mutual advantage.”

Kippley-Ogman, who used to be amongst the roughly 100 clergy arrested in anti-ICE protests in Minnesota remaining month, instructed the crowd on straightforward strategies to train the whistles: three short bursts to indicate the presence of DHS agents, three prolonged bursts to signal that agents are actively detaining any person.

She used to be adopted by Rabbi Sarah Bassin, govt director of HIAS, a Jewish neighborhood that has prolonged partnered with the federal executive to resettle refugees. The neighborhood is suing the manager over the president’s decision to successfully freeze the refugee program at this time after his inauguration, whereas allowing simplest exceptions for white Afrikaners from South Africa.

Bassin recited the names of 43 other folks she talked about died in ICE detention during the last twelve months, urging the crowd to acknowledge with “Baruch Dayan Ha’Emet” — a former Jewish response meaning “Blessed is the pick of truth.”

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of T’ruah, argued that the “Jewish commitment to protecting other folks on the pass is just not contemporary,” calling it certainly one of Judaism’s “earliest traditions.”

“Lately we are proving that we’re not going wherever: that the Jewish neighborhood continually has and continually will advocate for our neighbors, our neighborhood,” Jacobs told the crowd. “When we query ICE leave our cities, we are living our values.”

As workers exited the ICE building, participants periodically shouted, “Shame!” Some waved at ICE staffers who would sometimes detect out from windows overlooking the demonstration. A number of audio system encouraged ICE agents to give up their jobs and join the protest: Bigger than once, the crowd burst into chants, urging ICE agents to “join us.” Singing songs in English and Hebrew, the crowd belted out one song that included the pointed line, “I cannot stand by when they destroy my neighbors.”

The three-day convening of roughly 140 rabbis in Washington included discussion of easy strategies to oppose DHS. “A number of the training that we did needed to finish with standing up against authoritarianism, and the diagram authoritarianism has been halted in other international locations,” talked about Rabbi Abi Weber, who leads a synagogue in Philadelphia and attended the gathering.

Rabbi Michael Rothbaum, who serves at Congregation Dor Hadash in San Diego, talked about he had also traveled to be a fraction of the convening and authorized every Jewish theology and the experiences of the Jewish other folks compel him to advocate for immigrants. “Jewish other folks had been immigrants since there had been Jewish other folks,” Rothbaum talked about. “The word for Hebrew in Hebrew is Evri — it capability border crosser.”

The rabbis’ conference echoed a the same a gathering that took announce remaining month in Minneapolis, where a minimum of 600 clergy — including around 100 rabbis —had been trained on straightforward strategies to face up to DHS.

The outpouring of non secular resistance to Trump’s agenda has vastly greatly surprised some observers, but for Weber, the growing faith-based totally mostly resistance is to be anticipated.

“I think so many faith traditions beget this thought that we have to welcome the stranger. Now we beget got to welcome the different,” Weber talked about. “So I’m not vastly greatly surprised that at this moment, where there’s factual in truth in truth abominable assaults on the rights of immigrants and refugees, we’re seeing an outpouring of reinforce for those other folks from faith communities.”