What would have happened if after Kristallnacht, or when Jews were being rounded up for the concentration camps, the Berlin community united and came out in large numbers and peacefully resisted the Brownshirts and Gestapo? What if the Righteous Gentiles were so numerous that there was not enough room in Yad Vashem to list them?
I wondered about all of that last week in Minneapolis as I joined tens of thousands marching in the streets to protest the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol against immigrants and citizens in the city.
With only five days’ notice, a national call went out for clergy to assemble in Minneapolis to support the local community, which had declared a general strike on Friday, “ICE Out Day.” The community has been dealing with armed patrols pulling people off the streets on suspicion of being undocumented immigrants, breaking into homes without judicial warrants, and deporting people without due process. Even those who are citizens or are here legally with green cards or asylum status are scared to leave their homes or send their children to school, lest the family be separated or deported.
But they are not being abandoned by their neighbors, who have been organizing themselves to help those in jeopardy. We’ve all seen the news images of residents tracking ICE, blowing whistles to announce the presence of federal agents, and noisily announcing to these agents that their seizures of people are being witnessed and recorded. But so many of the community’s activities are less visible. Neighbors all over the city have found ways to help. Daily and hourly, they are making food, providing meals and delivering diapers, among many other tasks necessary to keep people safe and cared for. All of these efforts are part of the resistance.
I learned about much of this on Thursday in a church sanctuary filled with about 600 clergy from many traditions who, like me, had come from around the country on short notice. More arrived the next day, swelling the ranks. Sixty of us were Jewish clergy. I received the recruiting message from the rabbinical human rights organizations T’ruah and Rabbis for Ceasefire. (I am a member of both.) Several rabbis also posted the call on the listserv of the Northern California Board of Rabbis. At least seven Bay Area Jewish clergy joined the convening on Thursday.
At the church, we learned how to keep ourselves as safe as possible. We learned what actions we could take that were supportive of the community and appropriate for the organizing effort. We were apprised of the risks we could face. Some would be protesting at the airport, where special flights were departing with people seized by ICE and Border Patrol, to be detained far away from their families. We agreed that only local clergy would risk arrest so that lawyers would not have the extra burden of representing out-of-state folks. The next morning, 100 were arrested.
The gathering at the church did not just prepare us logistically; it also was a place where diverse clergy could pray and sing together in spiritual preparation for the day of action.
One lesson I brought home with me is that if and when we are faced with an onslaught of federal agents in the Bay Area, we need to follow the example from Minneapolis and be prepared in advance. And like the Minneapolis residents, we will need to drop sectarianism and divisions over matters that obstruct our ability to work together. Organizations that would never have been in coalition before joined together in Minneapolis. In our own Jewish clergy contingent, rabbis and kohenot from Renewal to Conservative, from Zionist to anti-Zionist, all worked together harmoniously. It takes a mixed multitude to do what we need to do.
Friday for me began early with an interfaith service at Temple Israel, the city’s largest synagogue, with hundreds in the sanctuary. The speeches and prayers placed the protests in the context of a struggle for greater democracy, and stressed putting into action the mitzvah of loving our neighbors as ourselves. The service included the Muslim call to worship, a shofar call, and prayers from Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman of Temple Israel and Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg of Congregation Shir Tikvah. Others who spoke, prayed or preached included both of Minnesota’s U.S. senators and Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C.
My next stop was All Nations Indian Church, where meals are prepared for those who have locked themselves into their homes out of fear of being seized.
On “ICE Out Day,” many businesses closed in support, but several restaurants stayed open to feed the community for free. A group of us ate lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant. As we were leaving, a local CBS News crew arrived, and I was interviewed along with the proprietor about what this day meant to us. The proprietor spoke as a refugee who wanted to support other refugees. I explained that Minneapolis was a community that needed protection, and that if no one came to protest there we would likely be seeing ICE soon in my own neighborhood and across the Bay Area.
I joined 100 clergy singing, praying and protesting at the entrance to the building housing Target Corporation’s international headquarters. We demanded that Target exercise its Fourth Amendment right to exclude ICE from its building, rather than allowing agents to access the premises and seize Target employees.
The day was getting warmer — but it was still subzero. I trooped a mile through the cold with a group of bundled Jewish clergy to the day’s main event, a march of 50,000 demanding that ICE leave Minnesota. It was followed by an immense rally at an indoor stadium, where Jewish leadership was well-represented among the speakers.
As evening approached, Jewish clergy found their way to local synagogues. I davened at Shir Tikvah. It was a Kabbalat Shabbat with a lively celebration of and commitment to resistance. We took inspiration from the very apt parashah of the week, from the Book of Exodus. Let my people go! Indeed.
On Saturday morning we learned that Alex Pretti, a VA nurse, had been shot to death while trying to protect another demonstrator. He died because he could not stand idly by. Neither should we. This time, we must be the “Righteous Jews.”