About 30 Bay Area Jews took part in a Jewish-led national day of action Thursday, protesting outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in downtown San Francisco.
Holding signs and singing, the protesters also sought to show their support for people lined up outside for immigration-related appointments in the U.S. Appraisers building, which houses an ICE office and a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office.
“With hope, with prayer, we are still here!” sang the demonstrators, who were separated from a line of around 40 immigrants by metal barricades.
The “Jews Demand ICE Out!” protest was one of 17 Jewish rallies and demonstrations planned across the country in a “Day of Action” demanding that ICE “to leave our communities,” according to Gen Slosberg, an organizer at T’ruah, a human rights organization of Jewish clergy that is active on the issue of immigration. Local contingents from T’ruah and Bend the Arc, another Jewish activist organization, organized the San Francisco rally.
“I think the main goal, the bulk of what we’re doing here today, is to help comfort and support the people who are in line,” said Slosberg.
Since President Donald Trump began his second term, he has pressed federal agencies to crack down on immigrants at the border and for those already in the U.S., including undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status. Federal immigrant agents have also escalated detentions and deportations. Public demonstrations against the government’s actions peaked in Minneapolis after federal agents shot and killed two American protesters there in January.
“Each protest is just a small drop, but a bucket is made with many small drops,” said Rabbi David Cooper, rabbi emeritus of Piedmont’s Kehilla Community Synagogue. “It’s our duty to show up and to be here, because as Jews, we have a mandate to be there for those who are vulnerable and need to be brought into the community.”
Cooper said that support for immigrants has been an important issue at Kehilla for years. Congregants have organized several ways to help, including creating volunteer teams that physically accompany people to immigration appointments and help them access services. Cooper said that Kehilla also built a “small sanctuary apartment” six years ago inside its building to temporarily house people who would otherwise be held in custody by ICE.
“The room has been used over and over again over these last six years or so, because there are people who have been released from [ICE] custody on the condition that they have an address that they can go to,” said Cooper. “Our space is the address that they can go to. And then there they can — now that they’re out of custody — look for a place that they can live.”
Rabbi Rena Singer of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco also attended the protest.
“We have to talk about our values over and over again to remind ourselves who we want to be, especially in a world where we’re so busy and tired and distracted all the time,” said Singer. “That’s just a core essence of what it meant to be Jewish since the beginning, since our earliest stories.”