A local rabbi was briefly arrested Jan. 23 in Minneapolis as hundreds of clergy from around the country gathered to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the Twin Cities.
Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, the Jewish and interfaith chaplain at Macalester College in St. Paul, was detained by police.
The local federation, the JCC, Jewish day schools and Jewish social services groups have condemned ICE’s presence.
“What did we learn from the Holocaust? We have to act and we have to resist,” one visiting rabbi, Diane Tracht of Reform-affiliated Temple Israel near Gary, Indiana, told the Religious News Service while patrolling a Hispanic and Somali region looking for ICE activity.
“If I’m not going to act and resist now, then I shouldn’t call myself a rabbi and I can’t be a proud Jew.”
Rabbi Aaron Weininger of Conservative Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka demonstrated at the airport and witnessed Kippley-Ogman’s arrest.
He said the rabbi “was in the lineup of clergy being prepared to get arrested.”
“The goal was to disrupt operations because [the airport] is being used to deport folks, like three flights a day,” Weininger said.
He wore a tallit and held a sign,“ICE Out of Minneapolis.”
He said, “The clergy brought out the best of what faith does, which is lifting people up, building community and speaking up for justice. There was song, there was prayer, a lot of relationship-building. The crowd was calm but also very clear, calling to the end of the atrocities that ICE is committing.”
Also as the airport was Rabbi Daniel Kirzane of the Reform KAM Isaiah Israel in Chicago.
In photos and video from the protest before the arrest, Kipley-Ogman can be seen delivering brief remarks while wearing a rainbow tallit and standing in a line at the airport’s arrivals gate with other faith leaders who hold hands and pray.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Jan. 22the arrests of three anti-ICE protesters who had been involved in disrupting a church service over the weekend.
There were an estimated 100 rabbis and Jewish leaders on the ground for “ICE Out” events across the Twin Cities Jan. 23, after local clergy issued a call for a show of strength to combat the region’s intensified ICE activity over the past few weeks.
Also present were Rabbi Jonah Pesner, head of the Union for Reform Judaism’s religious action center; Avodah CEO Cheryl Cook; Bend the Arc CEO Jamie Beran; and members of Conservative Judaism’s social justice commission, among others.
Another local Jewish leader took a different protest tactic, urging a day of fasting on Friday. “The Talmud describes an ancient custom of instituting communal fast days,” said Rabbi Tamar Magill-Grimm, senior rabbi at the Conservative Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights.
“Fasting is not about self-affliction. It is about clarity. It is about refusing to numb ourselves to suffering.”
