Dear JCOGS family,
If you read my recent email, you will know that I traveled to Minneapolis after receiving an invitation from my dear friend and colleague Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg to participate in bearing witness and learning what MARCH community leaders and clergy are doing as ICE targets the city. Many have been asking about my experience in Minneapolis, so I share some journal-like reflections with you here, with the understanding that things are changing constantly on the ground.
I answered the call to show up in Minneapolis because of my dear friend. But I also answered the call because a series of recent experiences and events made it impossible to stay home. Just two months prior, I marched with participants of our Southern US Civil Rights Interfaith Trip across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama where “Bloody Sunday” happened—with clergy and thousands of adults and children standing strong against state violence. Rev. Becca Girrell of the United Community Church of Morrisville, who came to Selma on that trip, would travel with me on this journey to Minneapolis. I also answered the call because of the shooting of Renee Good, to offer a calm presence to a tension filled place and to see beyond the headlines with my own eyes and hear with my own ears what is happening there. I answered the call because Jews across this nation were speaking up, including all of the leaders of the Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements—who rarely join together for such statements—who are collectively calling out what is happening in Minneapolis. Read their piece here.
And I answered the call because my ancestors were refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. A month before Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939, my zaidie—then stationed as an officer in the Polish army—was told to leave Poland by a superior officer who knew that my zaidie was Jewish. That quiet act of resistance is how my zaidie sought asylum in Russia and then Canada, and it is why I exist.
Arriving in Minneapolis, I participated in a convening with nearly 1,000 clergy from around the nation. Rabbi Arielle took the stage, talking about the 3,000 ICE agents in the small city of Minneapolis, where there were only 600 agents in Chicago. She described people being abruptly taken from hospital beds in the midst of receiving medical services and parents and children taken from schools. People are being arrested, flown away from their families, and “disappeared.” As Rabbi Arielle said: “We don’t know where people are or where they are being taken.” She spoke about citizen observers—lay journalists documenting with their cameras what is happening—being harassed, hurt, and even shot by ICE, naming Renee Good in a moment of quiet witness. She said that anyone and everyone is being questioned and detained, regardless of citizenship or legal status. Even off-duty Black and Brown Minneapolis police officers have reported to their police department about being stopped, questioned, and harassed by ICE.
A Native American clergy leader said how tragically ironic it is that indigenous people are being particularly targeted by ICE—a people that go back at least 13,000 years on Minnesota soil. He said, tongue-in-cheek: “We have opinions about who is illegally occupying this land.” He taught us the Lakota phrase Mitakuye Owasin—“We are all related.” It reminded me of our own tradition’s teachings that every human is created in G-d’s image, Betzelem Elohim, and that we must uphold the same law for the stranger and citizen in our midst.
Later that day, we were invited to walk the streets of an immigrant area. Wearing our clergy attire, one group witnessed twelve ICE agents surrounding a pregnant mother with her children, demanding that she present U.S. citizenship papers. The presence of clergy there with cameras in hand documenting what was happening helped disperse the ICE agents. That same day, we learned that a five-year-old was detained. We heard about how ICE agents have reportedly dragged pregnant women, pointed guns at children, and used banned chokeholds. We heard helicopters flying overhead in the city and we’ve all seen the pictures of ICE wearing paramilitary gear. ICE agents are masked, regularly failing to present badges, and entering homes without warrants. We were there to just walk around and make our presence known.
After some time in the -20F weather, we stopped into a Somali-run neighbourhood café—the immigrant community most targeted by ICE in Minneapolis. Due to ICE activity, many stores and restaurants in town were either closed down or struggling for business. We ordered some hot tea to stave off the cold, only to be told by the owner that she would not accept our money. We quietly left cash on the counter.
The next day, Friday, we headed to a local church. The church is bilingual, originally Swedish-English at its founding, it is now a Spanish-English community, with immigrants from all walks of life. The pastor there described the church as “a community of yes”—there for its underserved neighbours in countless ways. We heard in detail from a panel of neighbourhood clergy and community members about the mutual aid and the witnessing they are doing in tracking ICE activity. Countless Minnesotans have been involved in making sure that neighbours have food to eat, families have rides, and schools are safe for learning.
Then the church went into lockdown. We didn’t know what was happening, but we were told that we were safe and that we should stay calm. Later, I learned that an observer who was tracking ICE movement had her car window smashed in and was dragged out of her car, not arrested, but left by ICE on the side of the road that happened to be right next to the church. The church has run a medical clinic to support members of their community for some 20 years. With glass in her face, the woman was brought inside for medical care.
That afternoon, tens of thousands of people—likely around 50,000—marched with their neighbours on the streets in the coldest weather I have ever experienced. Then, filling the local Minneapolis arena, a group of local clergy and leaders—including Rabbi Arielle—took the stage to speak.
One Native American leader shared: “The real power, the true power is in each and every one of you. The true power is with the people, patrolling our streets, protecting our neighbourhoods, protecting our children, protecting the elders and mothers, and protecting all of our neighbours here in Minnesota.” Rabbi Arielle started with the greeting “Shabbat Shalom” and then she prayed: “Holy one by many names, felt in breath and in courage, heard in our cry for justice, be with us now in this moment.”
We got back to Rabbi Arielle’s synagogue just in time to lead song-filled services. Emotions were running high and the service was cathartic. We opened with what became the anthem for our time in Minneapolis, the song Our Power by Rena Branson. In the middle of Lecha Dodi, bearing the ice cold weather, members of the community walked outside the double doors to greet Shabbat.
Shabbat morning, we woke to the news that Alex Pretti was shot dead. Things were not slowing down in Minneapolis. Sunday, I decided to drive to what was quickly becoming the corridor of death in Minneapolis, stopping at the memorial for Renee Good, George Floyd, and Alex Pretti, each place where they were shot—all in very close proximity. I saw strewn flowers, memorial notes, and artistic renderings of the deceased. At the memorial, as is Jewish tradition on the tombstone, I left a stone in remembrance of the fallen.
Upon returning to the car, the wheels began spinning on the ice and the car would not budge. Two women flagged me down, and soon three more people joined them to help. They stood in the absolutely frigid cold for ten minutes pushing on the back of the car until the car was freed. When I shared with them how I was visiting as a rabbi in support of Minneapolis from Vermont, two of the people, mother and adult son, the mother with a Spanish speaking accent, told me that they were Jewish. The mother pulled out a Jewish star necklace engraved with the word “Tzion/Zion,” a 200 year old heirloom from her ancestors in Lithuania, worn since she was eleven years old. I was moved at the Minnesota generosity and at the profound connections across time and place. The spirit of Minneapolis reminded me deeply of Vermont’s spirit of neighbourliness and of Jewish commitments to care for one another.
Right after, I picked up Rabbi Arielle in the car, when she got a call from a local priest. The priest had been asked to join a special local town hall with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, but he said: “I won’t do it without my rabbi.” He asked Rabbi Arielle if she would join him. Two nights later, Rabbi Arielle and her priest would be featured on CNN.
Back at Rabbi Arielle’s home, for the next couple of days, I helped around the house, cleaning and cooking, playing with the kids, driving kids to and from school, alongside moments of connection with Rabbi Arielle, her husband Noam, and their colleagues and friends who were coming in and out of their home. All the while, I heard Rabbi Arielle coughing from tear gas exposure, while on an endless array of phone calls and meetings: organizing mutual aid food and rides; assembling community members to support others; supporting the cause of nonviolent actions. And I felt as though I was in a house of mourning. But also a home and city of moral uplift, where neighbours have each other’s backs.
So, yes, this week has felt like a year. I cried a lot this past week. I was glad to return home to Alison and the boys, including a welcome home board from my kids, one of whom wrote: “Thank you for not getting shot by ICE.” All of what I have shared and my many other experiences are still raw and real, and I continue to process them. But I want to pivot now to some overarching thoughts and what can be done right now.
REFLECTIONS
Judaism has long espoused the idea that dina d’malkhuta dina, “the law of the land is the law.” We have for centuries followed the rule of law, insofar as the laws are just. And as we know all too well, there are many moments in our history when the law of the land, and its enforcement, were not instruments of justice but of harm. This week in our Torah, we read the story of the Exodus from Egypt. That revolution from slavery to freedom began when two community midwives, Shifra and Pu’ah, defied through direct action Pharaoh’s unjust law to kill all of the Israelite boys. From the midwives to Moses standing before the powerful Pharaoh to the entire Jewish people and alongside some Egyptians—they stood up to Pharaoh’s unjust laws. (In the process though, the revolution got messy and violent: Moses killed an Egyptian taskmaster; the whole of Pharaoh’s army was swallowed by the water; and there were 10 plagues that devastated the land—hence spilling a drop of wine onto our plates for each plague.)
Like the midwives, Moses, and the Israelites, Dr. King wrote in his Letters from Birmingham Jail: “We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure… Nonviolent direct actions seek to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue… I am not afraid of the word ‘tension.’ I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.” King reminded us that “we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community.”
What Dr. King was describing is not abstract history; it is the moral terrain we are standing on right now. Taking out your phones to document or blowing whistles to alert a neighbourhood of ICE presence are the new forms of showing the principle of “love thy neighbours as thyself” in action. And the tragedy of the deaths is magnified by the power of those observers who had the courage to capture what was unfolding in real time.
I am not oblivious to the fact that a small minority of the protestors are being violent. I did drive by one spray painted building that disturbed me: “Give ICE absolute hate.” Dr. King taught: “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” I understand anger and rage against ICE. Hate, however, will not make this better and we know there is a dignified way to protest for those on the streets.
But I met and heard from dozens of leaders and citizens involved in efforts to curb ICE. With every fiber of my being, I can tell you from my experience that the overwhelming vast majority of people on the ground in Minneapolis are community-minded, caring people who wish no harm done to anyone, and who are simply trying to protect their many neighbours. If this is not being conveyed to the nation, then we need to reset the facts.
When events unfold this violently and in full public view, even our words are shaped in real time by what we are witnessing. While in Minneapolis, I received a message from a congregant who took issue with the fact that last week in a message to the community I called Renee Good’s shooting a ‘murder.’ He said: “Your original message was important, relevant, and urgent. I just would have used ‘killed’ instead of ‘murdered.’” This language came from people on the ground in Minneapolis and people watching the videos and bearing witness.
I feel so grievous for the families of Renee Good or Alex Pretti and for the community, lifting up my prayers of comfort for them with all of my strength. My sincere hope is that an independent investigation and impartial legal proceedings will bring both justice and some measure of solace to the families. I am moved that, as of writing, such proceedings are on the table, where they weren’t at the time of my writing last week.
Law enforcement put their bodies on the line each and every day. Their job is brutally difficult and fraught with dangerous risk. At the same time, respect for constitutional rights is not negotiable—and yes immigrants in the U.S., including those who are undocumented, have rights protected by the constitution. In our democracy, federal law enforcement must be held to the highest standards.
There is also something deeply sinister unfolding in Minneapolis when the administration says: “To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.” Justice and law and order demands accountability. That goes for everyone. There is an argument for legal, sane, and humane immigration enforcement. What is happening right now is so far from that—it is indefensible.
None of these reflections are a demand for ideological agreement, but rather a call to moral clarity. I don’t mean all of this to suggest that all Jews must think the same things all in unison. I thank G-d for people and their disagreements. Nor is this a partisan letter. Some of these same kinds of activities were happening under other administrations, including Democrats. But regardless of where you stand on immigration reform or ICE more broadly, or even what you think of these nonviolent protests—it’s just not okay what ICE is doing in Minneapolis. When a society tolerates or protects violence and denies accountability, it is our prophetic duty to call that out and demand justice. This is a moment for a moral call to everyone and anyone—regardless of your vote or your allegiances.
Minneapolis is showing the nation a model of mutual aid, nonviolent resistance, and coalition-building. The first step is simple: get to know your neighbours and your community. This is where it begins. If you are so moved, locally, we can learn and act through the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project of Vermont, who are fielding immigration legal help, and Migrant Justice, who are running rapid response trainings statewide. If you wish to support Minneapolis, organizers in the city recommend: This or this organization—both offering mutual aid. Rabbi Arielle’s synagogue Shir Tikvah has started this Yesod fund for mutual aid. And MARCH is the powerful multifaith organization that created the convening that I attended.
There is something cracking, not only in the fabric of this nation, but in the fabric of our hearts—moving us to take notice, stand up, and take action. Mr. Rogers lovingly said “Look for the helpers.” The Torah says: “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19) This teaching of Torah is not a suggestion but a charge—one that calls us to live our tradition and become the empathic helpers this moment demands.
With gratitude and resolve, Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Fainsilber
