Rabbi Sharon Blouse was increasingly uneasy about the Trump administration's strong arm tactics, including attacks on higher education funding and bullying at law firms, in the name of protecting Jews.
Earlier last month, she delivered a passionate sermon to a congregation in Los Angeles, entitled “I Am Not Your Pawn.” A few hours later, my next shoe fell off. Immigration agents began detaining activists and foreign students who were involved in the pro-Palestinian protests.
“This is not intended to protect the Jews,” Rabbi Blouse said in an interview. “We're being used.”
All over the country, American Jews have turned efforts to address campus unrest over the war in Gaza into campaigns to deny billions of dollars in fundraising, slamming major law firms into pro bono work with “anti-thoughts” and deporting foreign students involved in last year's protests.
Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Union, said:
The division reflects the long-standing division and deeper growth of the Jewish community since the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023, and the wide campus protests following Israeli devastating reaction in Gaza.
But if most Jews share concerns about anti-Semitic speeches in some of the protests, many in the community are convinced that things may have gone too far.
Videos of Plain Cross immigration agents shocking and arresting Turkish graduate students at Tufts University on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts, have had a particularly disturbing resonance for some in the Jewish community. Student Rumeysa Ozturk co-authored an essay in opinion from the Student Newspaper calling for the university to stand up to Israeli war in Gaza.
For many in the community who have suffered more than centuries of unfair arrests, losses, disappearances, deportations and fatal violence, the video has evoked painful memories from Jewish history. What it did in the name of the Jews it defended made it worse. Two pro-Israel groups, the Canary Mission and Betar, are even involved in targeting pro-Palestinian protesters.
“I stood up. I was sitting. I was standing in my mind,” said Oona Gollanik, an American clinical psychologist and therapist in Israel. “It's anger and fear.”
Such arrests “awaken people to the ironic way in which the fight against anti-Semitism is used,” added Dr. Guralnik, who gained fame on her television show “Couples Therapy.” “It contrasts with everything that liberals believe.”
In her practice, she said that American Jewish patients are “confusing and truly at odds with each other.”
While federal crackdowns have previously targeted Israeli critics, some believe that the actions of the Trump administration are unpleasantly reflective and reflective of an earlier era of prejudiced nationalism that gave way to open anti-Semitism.
“Find historical moments that benefited from the mix of nationalism and oppression that Jews are rampant,” journalist Matt Bye wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Tuesday. “I'll be watching for a while.”
By saying that the federal government's harsh actions lie in the name of protecting the Jewish community, the Trump administration is intentionally or shining the spotlight on many offensive Jews.
“Whenever you put Jews in trouble along the way, that's not good for Jews,” said Jonathan Jacoby of the Nexus Project, a progressive Jewish group looking for ways to fight anti-Semitism without suppressing political debate. “It's a classic anti-Semitic position where anti-Semitic people prefer to put Jews. So they can scapegoat.”
At the same time, the Trump administration continues to enjoy the support of many Jewish groups, including mainstream groups in social and political life.
The anti-defense league, which has worked to combat anti-Semitism for over a century, issued a statement last month in support of Mahmoud Khalil's arrest of Columbia activists, saying his detention is “deterrent to anyone considering breaking the law on a university campus or anywhere.” The statement said Halil assumed that he would be given a “due process.”
The pregnant American wife and a legal permanent resident from Syria, Mr. Halil has not been charged with a crime. He was in custody at a Louisiana facility for almost three weeks and was taken after being arrested in New York on March 8th.
The Orthodox Coalition, an umbrella organisation representing religious Jews, has broadly supported the actions of the Trump administration. In a statement, Executive Vice President Rabbi Moshe Hauer called for a fight against “anarchy, hatred, threats and violence that has infected campus.”
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Brooks, the Republican Jewish Union, said that there can be no answers to anti-Semitism, calling the notion that federal government actions put American Jews at greater risk.
On the streets of American cities with large, diverse Jewish communities, emotions were far more vague.
Rabijeremy Kalmanowsky, who leads a socially progressive but religiously conservative Jewish synagogue in Manhattan, said it was stopped on the sidewalk a few days ago.
“My community is extremely skeptical of the authenticity of the administration's anti-Semitic rhetoric,” said Rabbi Karmanovsky.
“I think Jews are worse in wear when the constitutional order and civil rights and civil liberties and the foundations of higher education are reduced,” he said, referring to the legal system and attacks on universities.
Amy Spitanic, chief executive of the Jewish Public Affairs Council, a democratic organisation, said he doubts the motivation behind the push to combat anti-Semitism, as it includes the selective application of due process rights based on people's identities and beliefs.
“It's about undermining democracy with concerns about anti-Semitism,” she said.
But it was sometimes a difficult experience to say so publicly.
Rabbi Kalmanofsky posted a dissent on Facebook to treat Khalil. Not because he agreed with the activists' views on Israel, but because he felt it unfavourable, but because his arrest represents a potential threat to everyone.
“Anyone can do this statutory resident is arrested and deported for exercising his first amendment rights,” he wrote, blocking deportation and offering “appreciation” to a federal judge in a case that is also a member of his synagogue.
The intense debate in his post surprised the rabbi.
“The right question is that America benefits from him being here,” one commenter replied, speaking of Mr. Halil. “If the answer is no, he should be deported.”
In Los Angeles, Ikal's Rabbi Blouse, a non-denominational Jewish congregation, lamented that for many, it would be difficult for them to hold two competing ideas simultaneously, whether Jew or not, and would make it much easier for them to retreat to a defined ideological camp.
She said she wanted to make it clear that two things were true: “There is a real anti-Semitism issue in our time, and universities are in a very fertile position.” She added that the administration's attacks “do not emerge from a true desire to keep Jews safe.”
“What may feel like a welcome embrace today is actually putting us in even greater danger,” she said in a sermon on March 8th.
One of her congregations, Shifra Bronznick, was watching online from New York, which resonated deeply with her. She told dozens of people about it and said, “You have to listen to this sermon.”
