The police have arrested dozens of Jews for taking a stand against Trump

NYPD officers and Never Again Action protesters


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Religious communities across the US have recently been standing up for people at risk from Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Jewish-Americans in particular have been consistently putting their bodies on the line to show their solidarity. And on 11 August, police arrested dozens of protesters in New York City as a result.

“We’re seeing parallels to 1930s Nazi Germany”

Thousands of Jewish Americans participated in protests across the US on 11 August to mark Tisha B’Av, a day of Jewish mourning. As +972 Magazine reported:

Hundreds of American Jewish demonstrators staged a sit-in at one of Amazon’s flagship stores in New York on Sunday, to protest the company’s ties to the big-data firm Palantir, which contracts directly with Immigration and Custom Enforcement [ICE] forces…

The protest, organized by a coalition of Jewish groups including T’ruah, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), and Never Again Action, as well a number of synagogues, was organized in solidarity with immigrants threatened with deportation by ICE and who are vulnerable to attacks by white nationalist terrorists.

Images of the event were soon trending on Twitter:

Activists also explained why they feel so strongly about Trump’s hostile targeting of immigrant communities:

“Never Again is a promise, and it requires action”

As Jewish-American student Sophie Hurwitz wrote for the Independent:

Throughout our childhoods, many of us who were raised within the American Jewish community have had the phrase “Never Again” repeated at us over and over – meaning that we should never allow anything like the Holocaust to happen again. By taking part in these protests, and demanding that ICE be abolished, I believe I am fulfilling that promise.

And for precisely that reason, the New York protests were far from being a one-off. As one journalist wrote:

Indeed, the protests have continued since 11 August:

And religious principles remain an important part of the protests, with Never Again Action speaking about the Jewish concept of ‘tikkun olam’. This refers to “acts of kindness performed to perfect or repair the world” and “has become synonymous with the notion of social action and the pursuit of social justice”.

The group also stressed that “these values are universal”:

Jewish-Americans see just how toxic Trump is

As The Canary previously reported, Trump has long enabled the kind of antisemitic conspiracy theories that have contributed to rising antisemitic murders. His racist rhetoric, meanwhile, has been emboldening the white supremacists behind many of these attacks. And most Jewish-Americans seem to be fully aware of this.

In one recent poll, for example, 71% of Jewish respondents expressed disapproval of Trump. In another, 70% viewed him “unfavorably”. What’s more, 73% thought Jewish-Americans were “less secure than they were two years ago”, with around 60% blaming Trump (at least in part) for recent antisemitic massacres.

But it’s not just that most Jewish-Americans dislike Trump. Indeed, the ongoing ‘Never Again’ protests show that many of them know full well that actively standing up to Trump and his fascist allies is key to dealing a fatal blow to racism.

Featured image via Twitter – Never Again Action (screenshot – abc)

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