Today, dozens of T’ruah rabbis, from across the country, joined their Minneapolis/St. Paul colleagues to march alongside hundreds of interfaith leaders, to say ICE out of Minnesota NOW.
These rabbis dropped everything to drive or fly to Minneapolis because they refuse to stand idly by while ICE brutally attacks immigrant communities, dividing families, destroying people’s livelihoods, ignoring due process, breaking windows and doors, dragging people outside in subzero temperatures, and even using young children as pawns. They refuse to stand idly by when there is still no justice for Renee Good and her family.
From coast to coast, actions and prayer vigils against ICE and in support of Minneapolis are everywhere, and T’ruah rabbis are also speaking at or helping organize many of those. Over 2,600 people joined a National Prayer Call for Minnesota on Zoom this morning. Here’s the prayer I shared there. Rabbis around the country are spiritually supporting their colleagues by reciting tehillim, psalms. The message is clear: Jews stand with our neighbors. We want ICE out of Minnesota and out of all our communities.
This isn’t going to stop with Minnesota. We need to be prepared for this same scenario to play out in other cities. If you haven’t yet, this is the time to take an ICE Watch or Know Your Rights training, get plugged in to local mutual aid groups, and have conversations with any organizations or institutions you’re part of about how to handle ICE raids. It’s also time to call your senators and urge them to vote no on the proposed appropriations bill that grants even more funding for ICE detention.
Our Torah reading this week had us right in the middle of the story of oppression and slavery in Egypt. It’s all too familiar. A leader concerned only with his own profit and glory scapegoats a foreign minority, and persecutes them for his own gain. This is the story of Pharaoh, and of our ancestors’ enslavement and liberation.
To get through this, we need all the fortitude of Moses, who — in this week’s parashah — refuses any freedom that doesn’t include everyone. When Pharaoh offers to allow the Israelite men to leave Egypt, Moses responds that his people will not leave Egypt until Israelite men, women, and children all leave Egypt together. We, too, must not let ourselves be divided. We must fight together for the safety of everyone who calls this country home — adults and children, U.S. and foreign-born, people of all races, faiths, and backgrounds.
We won’t stand idly by as our neighbors are kidnapped from their homes, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. And with your support, we will keep empowering rabbis and cantors to be the moral leaders this moment desperately needs.
In solidarity,
Rabbi Jill Jacobs (she/her)
CEO, T”ruah