Thousands of Jewish activists in 60 cities on Sunday observed Tisha B’Av, an annual day of mourning, by protesting the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies, including family separation and the inhumane treatment of children and their families in detention centers and camps across the U.S.
“Some came in large groups from their synagogues, sporting matching T-shirts and signs that read ‘Never Again,’” The Washington Post reported. “Others, like 87-year old Ann Ingram and her 59-year-old daughter, Julie Ingram, had never observed Tisha B’Av before, but felt compelled to mark the occasion for the first time this year.”
The Post notes that the Tisha B’Av protests were just the latest demonstrations staged by outraged Jewish leaders and allies in the past several weeks. Earlier this month, 100 Jewish leaders shut down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Wisconsin, saying that “central to Jewish life is the concept of Tikkun olam, the responsibility to heal the world and pursue social justice. Jews are taught from an early age that to remain silent in the face of injustice is morally unacceptable.”
This past Sunday, dozens were arrested in one protest outside a New York City Amazon store, in protest of the corporation’s financial ties with mass deportation agencies. “We mourn the destruction of all things holy on the Jewish observance of Tisha b’Av,” said Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. This current administration’s attacks on immigrants, Muslims, Jews, people of color, and so many others are likewise horrific destruction of holiness.”
87-year-old Ingram, who was attending the Washington, D.C. protest, condemned the recent raids that cruelly swept up nearly 700 food processing plant workers in Mississippi and left screaming children behind. “What happened in Mississippi was unbelievable. Unbelievable,” she said. “Can you imagine a child coming home to find her parents have disappeared?”
Last week, hundreds of Lutheran activists also shut down the Wisconsin ICE office, some carrying signs reading, “We put the protest back in Protestant.” Member Evelyn Soto Straw said “it just keeps getting worse and worse in terms of unaccompanied children, separated families, detention centers that are just horrific, and so what we wanted to say as a church body, as the Lutheran church, we wanted to now act with our feet and take action.”
