Rabbis protest immigration policies outside Trump Tower
Rabbis build a sukkah, a temporary dwelling symbolizing acceptance and community, in a peaceful protest at Trump Tower, Monday, Oct. 9, 2017. Credit: Louis Lanzano
About two dozen rabbis from throughout New York City erected a temporary dwelling called a sukkah Monday outside Trump Tower and called on President Donald Trump to offer “shelter” and “refuge” to immigrants.
The rabbis, some of them immigrants, held up signs that included messages such as “My father was a Syrian refugee” and “You shall love the immigrant.”
A sukkah is a 6-foot-tall structure with fabric walls and a bamboo roof used during Sukkot, an eight-day holiday that began last Wednesday at sundown. The group kept it up for about 45 minutes.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, which organized the protest, said the symbolic structure represents fragility and community.
“What keeps us strong in America is our community and the people who come here,” she said at the demonstration.
The peaceful demonstration occurred hours after the Trump administration released an immigration wish list Sunday night that includes funding for a Mexico-border wall, which Democrats have said they will not support.
White House aides described the proposals as necessary to protect public safety and jobs for American-born workers.
Some Democrats also said the proposal would derail a possible deal to renew the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program that offers protected status to nearly 800,000 young people brought to the United States as undocumented minors.
The rabbis’ action “is intended to protest the Trump administration’s inhumane immigration policies,” said Jacobs, executive director of T’ruah, a coalition of 1,800 U.S. rabbis who focus on human rights activism.
The Jewish holiday of Sukkot signals the end of harvest time and the agricultural year in Israel and commemorates the sheltering of the Israelites in the wilderness, organizers said. — Laura Figueroa and Lisa Irizarry
Laura Figueroa Hernandez is the White House correspondent and previously covered New York City politics and government. She joined Newsday in 2012 after covering state and local politics for The Miami Herald.
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