Perhaps, you haven’t heard about it, but members of the Jewish clergy, locally and nationally, are standing against the Trump administration’s defunding of universities and deportations of international students. Fighting antisemitism is the ostensible motive for these government actions; however, Trump himself has repeatedly stereotyped and demeaned Jews, especially most of our coreligionists who vote for Democrats.
And Trump pardoned numerous convicted January 6 rioters that have well-documented histories of antisemitic behavior, apart from engaging in violence against police officers at the Capitol. For example, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, described by federal prosecutors as a “Nazi sympathizer,” went to work at a naval weapons station with a “Hitler mustache,” according to National Public Radio. Hale-Cusanelli spoke twice last summer at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, at fundraising events organized by an outfit called the Patriot Freedom Project, NPR reported.
“All of the people there, you’re amazing patriots,” Trump said in a video sent to the group. “Have a great time at Bedminster.”
Getting back to Jewish resistance to Trump’s policies, in late April, more than 550 rabbis and cantors signed a letter criticizing the Trump 2.0 administration for “abusing the issue” of antisemitism, JTA reported.
The letter, titled “A Call to Moral Clarity: Rejecting Antisemitism as a Political Wedge,” was organized by two progressive Jewish groups: J Street and the rabbinic group T’ruah.
“The resurgence of this age-old hatred is alarming, and we unequivocally stand against it in all its forms,” the J Street-T’ruah letter stated. “We must also be clear: the way in which the Trump administration claims it is combating antisemitism is not about protecting Jews — it is instead overtly abusing the issue to divide Americans, undermine democracy, and harm other vulnerable communities.”
JTA also reported that the Jewish refugee aid group HIAS issued a separate letter in April that included the signatures of over 560 Jewish religious leaders. That letter condemned the “immoral use of the law” by the Trump administration, specifically citing the administration’s deportation campaigns.
“The HIAS letter criticized the Trump administration’s mass revocation of student visas,” according to JTA. “The administration has revoked over 1200 student visas, including those of some pro-Palestinian student activists. The administration began rolling back the revocations amid a spree of lawsuits from affected international students.”
The April 22 HIAS letter was titled “Jewish Clergy Speak Out on the Immoral Use of the Law,” and it cited the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 “to deport hundreds of people without due process.”
The HIAS letter continued: “Much of the Holocaust was made possible through a series of legal acts that lost any grounding in a foundation of human dignity. We do not invoke that history lightly in this context, nor are we declaring that Holocaust-like events are the inevitable end of what we are witnessing today. But we know that the Holocaust did not happen overnight — it took place after years of manipulation, injustice and discrimination. And it was not just the slow erosion of norms and laws that made it possible, but their intentional manipulation.”
In conclusion, the HIAS statement noted: “As Jews and as Americans, we refuse to remain silent at the co-opting of our nation’s statutes and express alarm about the path down which it leads. We demand that the administration abandon its manipulative interpretation of law and restore a commitment to the inalienable rights that are the source of our country’s greatness.”
In the same vein, the Minnesota Rabbinical Association (MRA) issued a “Letter to the Jewish Community about Constitutional Rights and Jewish Safety,” in the run-up to Passover, that acknowledged the troubling rise of antisemitism, yet advised that “we cannot allow fear to keep us from facing another threat to our nation.”
The letter, which was sent to the Jewish World by Rabbi David Locketz and Rabbi Ricky Kamil, MRA co-chairs, and signed by them and 38 other Minnesota rabbis, continued:
Today, we are witnessing a steadily growing crackdown on universities across the country, detaining international students and defunding universities. These detentions and financial penalties are being justified by the Trump Administration as part of the fight against antisemitism.
On the surface, this approach may seem to offer protection. But this short-term solution is shortsighted. We are concerned that this approach which targets and detains international students threatens to erode our democracy without making Jewish or Israeli students any safer. It is stirring up fear and stifling free speech. We want Jews and other minorities to feel safe on college campuses and not face threats of violence as we’ve stated in the past and we object to the violation of anyone’s Constitutional rights as a strategy for fighting antisemitism.
The recent spate of immigrant arrests and withholding of Federal funding from universities are evidence of a strategy employed by the Trump administration called “Project Esther,” authored by the Heritage Foundation. This strategy uses claims of fighting antisemitism to dismantle values we hold dear as Jews and as Americans, including the right to express dissent and the imperative to protect the stranger.
History has taught us that whenever a government restricts the rights of a given group, oppression of the Jews will soon follow. We have learned that our safety and freedom as Jews is irrevocably bound up with the safety and freedom of all people.
It’s heartening to see our Jewish clergy members speaking out against the Trump administration’s abuse of civil rights in the guise of fighting antisemitism. At this point it’s hard to see what precise actions will stop Trump’s formation of an authoritarian regime, a full-blown fascist nightmare in the United States.
The MRA letters advises: “Let us commit to an ethic of care, accountability, and civil rights for all — including for those with whom we may disagree. The work before us requires us to build coalitions to protect our community in ways that bind our safety and freedom with others.”
The future of our society is on the line at this moment.
Mordecai Specktor / editor [at] ajwnews [dot] com
(American Jewish World, May 2025)
