Dozens of rabbis were arrested Tuesday morning after staging a protest at the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, calling for aid in Gaza and an end to what they called the Israeli government’s “blockade” of the enclave.
The arrests come a day after eight rabbis were arrested at a separate demonstration in New York City, in a sign of surging Jewish concern about the condition of Gaza civilians.
In Washington, the group of 27 rabbis affiliated with the advocacy group Jews for Food Aid for People in Gaza entered Thune’s office at around 11:10 a.m. Tuesday morning, and displayed banners reading “Rabbis say: Protect Life!” and “Rabbis say: Stop the Blockade.”
The demonstration called to mind some of the protests by rabbis and other Jews in favor of a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war that took place regularly in the war’s first year, and some of the rabbis arrested were involved in those protests as well. But it comes as calls for an end to the war and relief for Gazan civilians grow more mainstream, amid a hunger crisis that has captured headlines around the world.
Over the past two months, over 23,500 Jews, including over 750 rabbis and over 100 Jewish congregations, synagogues, and organizations have signed a statement titled “Jews for Food Aid for People in Gaza.” More than 1,000 rabbis this week signed an open letter demanding that Israel “stop using starvation as a weapon of war.” (Israel rejects the allegation.)
And lawmakers from both parties, as well as President Donald Trump and other world leaders, have expressed concern about the plight of civilians in Gaza — even after Israel announced that its army would pause military operations in some parts of Gaza for 10 hours a day to facilitate the distribution of aid.
“We are here to demand that our elected officials protect life and take immediate action to end the starvation for all people in Gaza, including Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli hostages who are still being held captive in Gaza,” a rabbi said at the sit-in in Thune’s office.
Two rabbis read briefly from Lamentations, the text recited on the upcoming holiday of Tisha B’Av that describes the siege of ancient Jerusalem, translating the phrase, “Little children beg for bread; none gives them a morsel.”
The group of rabbis then began singing Psalm 23 using a tune traditionally used at Jewish funerals before Capitol police arrested them and removed them from the Senate Office Building.
Of the group of arrested rabbis, many have been vocal supporters of pro-Palestinian Jewish movements, including Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, the former director of the social justice organizing program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; Rabbi Abby Stein, the first openly transgender female rabbi from a Hasidic background; and Rabbi Andrue Kahn, a Brooklyn-based Reform rabbi who heads the historically anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism. One of those arrested, Rabbi Amelia Wolf, is the leader of the Conservative congregation Etz Hayim in Arlington, Virginia.
“This is about life and death. Our most urgent spiritual responsibility as Jews and as rabbis is to protect life,” Rabbi Alissa Wise, the founding director of Rabbis for Ceasefire, said in a statement. “All life is sacred, but Palestinian lives are not treated as such, and that is a blot on our collective humanity. We are here to insist on the sanctity of life of every Palestinian, of every Israeli, of all of us.”
The arrests come a day after eight rabbis were arrested in a protest organized by T’ruah and New York Jewish Agenda outside of the Israeli Consulate in New York City. The rabbis, along with hundreds of other demonstrators that were part of the protest, were calling for increased aid into Gaza, an end to the war and the return of all hostages.
The group of rabbis were held in a Manhattan jail for over two hours before being released, according to an Instagram post by Rabbi Evan Traylor, the assistant rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn.
“I’m okay, and will continue speaking and working for an end to the starvation of Gaza, the return of the hostages, an end to the war, and true justice and peace for all people in Israel/Palestine,” he wrote.
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