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 voice opposition to the agency’s role in President Donald Trump’s ongoing mass deportation effort.
“We are watching ICE commit heinous acts of violence, of terror, and it’s designed to rid this country of the thing that makes us the strongest — which are our immigrant friends and neighbors,” Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum said as she addressed the crowd, which stretched down the street.
Kleinbaum, rabbi emerita of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York, added: “We know it from history, and we know it from God, what is demanded of us in this moment.”
The crowd then burst into a chant — “Jews against ICE” — repeating it several 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 under the Department of Homeland Security, adding to growing faith-based 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 Call for Human Rights, and according to protest organizers — which included T’ruah and Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, as well as more than 50 Jewish organizational sponsors — Wednesday’s event was the “largest Jewish protest again …