I know I am not alone in my deep concern for the Minneapolis community. While the content of the images we see on television or online may depend on the news sources we select, they all convey a sense of collective outrage and fear.
Many in the faith community have cited the biblical injunctions to welcome the stranger and love our neighbor as basis for objecting to the federal government’s current immigration enforcement efforts. Others have compared federal officers’ response to protestors — that have resulted in three shootings including the tragic killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti — to tactics employed by law enforcement against nonviolent demonstrators during the darkest days of the Civil Rights Movement. Still others have likened the forced entry of homes and the dragging away of occupants to the experience of Jews in Nazi Germany. Whether or not one accepts the comparisons, the images coming from Minneapolis are horrifying.
The federal government contends immigration agents are attempting to make the community safer by removing individuals who represent a danger, and that the interference of protestors has resulted in unnecessary violence. Last week in The Wall Street Journal, Bernard Hebda, Catholic Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, acknowledged: “It is right to respect the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers when they are fulfilling their mission to identify and detain serious criminals who have illegally entered the country. The removal of dangerous people serves the common good. Protecting the innocent is a moral obligation. Yet the current environment is untenable. Even law-abiding immigrants are living in fear.”
And not only immigrants, of course. Some of us have non-immigrant friends and family in Minneapolis who are afraid. And others are concerned that the scenes escalating there, which began elsewhere, may spread to other cities.
While the truth of what is unfolding may seem clear to each of us (even if we see that truth differently), it is difficult to dispute that ICE’s deployment, absent community trust, creates a threat to public safety.
In such instances, Jewish tradition not only revisits values and historical precedents; it directs solutions. Civil legislation in Deuteronomy prioritizes public safety, and when it is in jeopardy, the Talmud and subsequent legal codes demand any threats to public safety be removed, and even that circumstances causing the public to fear for its safety similarly be eliminated.
Until they are, many in Minneapolis will continue living in fear. And many will remain in hiding, unable to go to work, the grocery store, or school, afraid they will be targeted for detention based on how they look or speak.
For those who wish to address the needs of those most affected, I invite you to participate in a relief effort sponsored by Temple Israel of Minneapolis supporting 400 pre-K through 8th-grade students and their families at the Ella Baker School who are currently afraid to leave their homes. Your donations will help provide the assistance these families require for rent, utilities, groceries, and other necessities. To donate, please visit Temple Israel’s giving page and select “Immigration Justice Fund” from the drop-down menu.
May the coming days bring peace and calm to the streets of Minneapolis and all the cities of our nation, so that the necessary healing can begin.
