By Shane Burley / Truthout
While many are gathering this weekend to hold seders on the first nights of Passover, a number of Jewish organizations are inviting us back into the streets to take the message of liberation further. On Monday, April 14, the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) will lead over a thousand Jews in a Passover seder directly in front of the New York City headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This “emergency seder” is part of their now weeks long campaign, led in coalition with other Jewish leftist organizations, to confront Trump’s mass deportations and, specifically, the targeting of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil.
“This year, all over the U.S., Jews are holding emergency Passover Seders calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil and an end to the criminalization of all those calling for an end to the Israeli government’s genocide of the Palestinian people,” JVP said as it announced the action. This seder is part of a long tradition of using Jewish rituals as a protest tactic, uniting the prophetic spiritual tradition of Judaism with the practical strategies of physical resistance and blockade. This action, offered with relatively short notice and promising to mobilize huge numbers of Jews and allies, is the result of the relationships that have been built across Jewish organizations as they try to confront the repression coming in Trump’s second term.
“We’re building a new coalition right now. Because not all of us have been in the same space together,” Lily Greenberg Call, a member of the New York City chapter of the Jewish anti-Occupation group IfNotNow, called into a megaphone on March 20. “But it is more important than ever now to reach for each other and unite for our communities and our neighbors who are under attack,” she told the thousand people who had flooded the streets of lower Manhattan, the historic home of the U.S. Jewish left. “People in this city have been abducted, separated from their families, thrown in detention camps, and threatened with deportation.”
Greenberg-Call first made headlines in May of 2024 when she left her post as special assistant to the chief of staff to President Joe Biden over his unwavering support of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, which by that point had killed more than 35,000 Palestinians.
Greenberg-Call was one of many speakers at the Jewish Rally for Freedom and Democracy, an action meant to highlight Donald Trump’s attacks on free speech and the rights of immigrants, particularly the arrest of legal permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, a leader of the Columbia student movement for Palestinian liberation, is now facing deportation proceedings despite having been charged with no crime (the government now claims he lied on his green card application) and has become a flashpoint as the new Trump administration attacks universities, students and immigrants, using Jewish safety as a pretense to unleash an unprecedented wave of repression.
The March 20 demonstration did not happen in isolation — it was only the latest in a sequence of related mass protests organized by a coalition of Jewish progressive groups dedicated to resisting Trump’s authoritarianism through collaboration and solidarity.
Building the Jewish Left
October 7 was one of the largest global political shifts since Trump’s first candidacy in 2016, especially for the U.S. Jewish community. Mainstream Jewish organizations, which often track liberal, fractured as many purged their ranks of anti-Zionist voices critical of Israel. At the same time, the ranks of long-established Jewish leftist organizations swelled, even as some of their established relationships with the mainstream Jewish world were cut off. For example, the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council, a collection of mainstream Jewish organizations that coordinate at the regional level, expelled the Boston Workers Circle, a progressive and secular Jewish organization with a long history on the American Jewish left, for partnering with anti-Zionist organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
This realignment came as many young Jews looked to define their identity without accepting complicity in Israel’s violence in Gaza. As the political ground shifted, many of these progressive Jewish organizations increased their collaboration. This was evident as JVP and IfNotNow came together in joint actions across the country, including a massive action on the National Mall followed by an occupation of the Capitol rotunda, demanding a ceasefire in the weeks after October 7. Groups like JVP (which was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1996 and broadened into a group with a nationwide grassroots base in 2002) and IfNotNow (which was founded in 2014 in response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza that year) have been friendly with each other and covered similar issues for many years, but in 2023 their shared urgency in response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza cemented a working relationship between many of these organizations at a scale that had not previously existed. Those relationships only expanded with groups like the established New York City-based Jewish secular organization Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), as well as newer groups like the Halachic Left, which hopes to change the discourse on Israel-Palestine in Orthodox and observant Jewish communities. New organizations such as Rabbis for Ceasefire also formed that often held organizational overlaps with existing groups, further broadening the coalition and cementing relationships.
“Our message to Washington is that we are not silenced, we are not afraid, and we stand together, determined to defeat this ongoing assault on our fundamental rights.“
With Trump promising that his second term will be built on revenge and repression, these organizations leaned on the relationships they had cultivated so that they could meet the moment quickly by depending on the established base each group had. This created a de facto coalition of groups that could collaborate in ways that increase their responsiveness to the threats coming, allowing each to maintain their own main focus and also pivot with relevant resources and expertise when the situation called for it. Because the Jewish left may be split up between a number of different organizations with different political positions, demographics and regional ties, the collaboration allows all of their constituencies to begin moving together on issues of such shared importance. With Trump’s threats escalating, and establishment Jewish organizations putting up little in terms of resistance, the commonalities between Jewish left groups are significant as they push back on the assault on immigrants, universities, unions and activists.
“We sort of read the writing on the wall over the last year and a half we have strengthened some of the relationships… [and] really invested in building those relationships and getting clear and aligned,” said Sophie Ellman-Golan, the communications director of JFREJ.
This became especially important as arrests and crackdowns escalated after Trump took office, and as some established Jewish organizations supported and collaborated with his administration’s attacks on basic rights. Groups across the Jewish left had been watching as Trump, Republicans and especially the right-wing Heritage Foundation leveraged Jewish fear to push through an agenda of stripping civil liberties. Project 2025’s “Project Esther” document, published in 2024, outlined Trump’s current strategy of treating universities as a war zone and targeting immigrants, particularly immigrant students, under the guise of “protecting” Jews from the alleged dangers of campus antisemitism. The idea was to use claims of antisemitism as a way of attacking liberal and progressive institutions, such as universities and non-profits, under the guise of fighting antisemitism, thus aiming to pull in constituents who care about that issue while also mobilizing fear for Jewish safety as a weapon against their political enemies.
As Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates Ben Lorber told Truthout, Project Esther is significant because it “draws from pre-existing campaigns to suppress criticism of Israel and really amplifies them” while taking up the strategies and lessons of earlier eras of state repression and then “synthesizes all of them into a single program to suppress the movement for Palestinian rights.”
Lorber added: “It’s ironic, as many people pointed out that, you know, it’s supposedly about protecting Jews from antisemitism. But very few Jewish groups were involved in creating the document.” Moreover, Lorber notes that the document gets very basic facts about American Jewish life incorrect. Instead, it invokes Jewish safety as a pretext for its authors’ unrelated agenda, such as the defunding of elite universities. “We’ve seen a lot of it before. The right has been calling to deport students for a while now,” points out Lorber, but now seeing it in a central document that cites Jewishness as the prime cause is significant.
Even as the far right is the primary culprit in the rise in antisemitic incidents, and even as Trump’s administration has allowed antisemites and antisemitic rhetoric into his regime, the far right has used Project Esther in an effort to claim authority over the fight against antisemitism. In doing so, it has shifted entirely away from progressive remedies against bigotry and has instead stoked a pro-Israel political consensus that locates Palestinians and Palestine advocates as the greatest anti-Jewish menace in the country.
Taking on the ADL
In the first hours of Trump’s second administration, Elon Musk — the world’s richest man, known for sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories — lifted his arm in what many understood as a Nazi salute. Immediately, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the most influential U.S. organizations claiming to fight antisemitism, defended Musk and said that this was not a racist gesture. This followed Musk’s own attacks on the ADL, who he publicly went to war with after the ADL warned about the increase of antisemitism on his social media platform X. Musk responded by threatening to sue and retweeting white nationalists who had been utilizing the #BanTheADL hashtag and who suggest the ADL is an anti-white hate group.
The ADL has come under fire for years for pushing a conservative agenda that intentionally conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism and attacks the left, leading to what critics say are weaponized accusations of antisemitism against advocates of Palestinian rights and Palestinian and Arab voices in particular. This led to the creation of the Drop The ADL campaign in August of 2020, which featured a number of Jewish organizations as well. While the ADL had often been portrayed as a largely centrist institution with a liberal commitment to civil rights, critics now allege even that characterization has slipped as the ADL backed down from its criticism of Musk, going as far as to immediately defend his inauguration gesture, and then has collaborated with the Trump administration. The ADL went as far as to break with nearly all civil rights advocates in the U.S. when it supported Trump’s anti-immigrant measures under the guise of Jewish safety. In response, the de facto coalition of leftist Jewish groups came together with a clear message: the ADL does not speak for Jews.
“The ADL wants to make itself the liberal face of Trumpism,” said Rabbi Alissa Wise with Rabbis for Ceasefire, who co-organized a March 3 protest at the ADL’s annual Never Is Now summit. “The whole thing is legitimately scary. You have this major organization … forgiving the Nazi salute, getting in bed with Christian nationalists.” The goal then would be to delegitimize the ADL as the sole voice on antisemitism and Jewish safety, and perhaps demand alternatives emerge that can support communal needs.
Fighting Deportations
In the days following the ADL protest, Trump’s next target became clear with the arrest of Palestinian protest leader and recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil’s imprisonment quickly became one of the largest political flashpoints in the country as Trump simultaneously stripped $400 million in funding from Columbia University in a successful attempt to push the school to adopt unprecedented repressive measures under the pretext of fighting antisemitism. The ADL roundly supported the arrest of Khalil, whom they baselessly suggested could have provided “material support” for terrorism. Just recently, ADL CEO Jonathon Greenblatt, seeing the protests against the ADL emerge, may have started to walk this position back, saying in eJewishPhilanthropy that “if we sacrifice our constitutional freedoms in the pursuit of security, we undermine the very foundation of the diverse, pluralistic society we seek to defend.”
”So many groups are recognizing the threat that the Trump administration poses and the need to resist fascism,”
Khalil’s arrest happened on Saturday, March 8, and by Monday, March 10, a coalition of Jewish groups worked with AAUP to pull together a massive press conference at Columbia where faculty spoke out about the conditions of repression, highlighting the connection between the attacks on education, the rights of workers and students and the safety of immigrants.
“The attack on Mahmoud Khalil is intended to make … all of us quake in our boots,” said celebrated mathematician and Columbia Professor Michael Thaddeus. “Our message to Washington is that we are not silenced, we are not afraid, and we stand together, determined to defeat this ongoing assault on our fundamental rights.”
Next came a March 13 demonstration led by JVP’s New York City chapter at Trump Tower, where hundreds of Jews flooded the lobby of the famous Fifth Avenue building chanting “Bring Mahmoud home now!” The action led to nearly 100 arrests, and included members from across several different Jewish organizations, with JVP taking the lead due to their established track record of turning out supporters for mass direct actions.
“It’s been a moment when so many groups are recognizing the threat that the Trump administration poses and the need to resist fascism,” said Jonah Rubin, a New York City-based campus organizer with JVP. “I think groups are really willing to throw down and support each other and recognized the need to push back on the fascism that starts with targeting vulnerable people like Mahmoud Khalil but doesn’t end there.”
The Trump Tower action was also a stepping stone to the March 20 rally in lower Manhattan, when a thousand Jews and supporters came out to raise their voices and hold both Trump and complicit Jewish organizations accountable.
Bringing People Into the Streets
A coalition functions by allowing each organization to do what they do best and work on their own projects while coming together to amplify each other and share in a coordinated strategy.
“We recognize that we are different groups … [and while] we are all supportive broadly of each other’s work, there’s reasons we have different organizations,” said Rubin, pointing out that disagreements exist between some of the organizations who are collaborating, not to mention among individual members. “We also recognize that we are under a threat that, certainly in my lifetime, doesn’t have precedence, and that requires us to come together to build the power we need to resist it.” Some of these organizations, like JVP, take an explicitly anti-Zionist stance, while others, like JFREJ, do not. The coalition then creates ways of bridging those differences to create working relationships where participants don’t need to suppress their own political convictions to collaborate.
Organizations like JFREJ have a long-standing constituency among the city’s progressive Jewish community and are fighting to maintain the city’s sanctuary status and against Mayor Eric Adams’ anti-immigrant agenda. A coalition exists not by creating perfect alignment on every political question, but by locating shared values and common threats and figuring out how to create bonds that can bridge the distance.
“In light of what’s been happening both with what we’ve been seeing in New York City but also nationally, with rising authoritarianism, we’ve been seeing a growing need for people to come together and for organizations to unite and build power.” Zoe Goldblum, from IfNotNow’s New York City chapter, told Truthout. “And because of that we’ve been working together and building a strong coalition so that we’re able to grow our movement and that’s been really successful. When we show up together, we’re stronger, and we know that.”
And as the coalition started to confront Khalil’s arrest, several more mainstream and liberal Zionist Jewish institutions also joined in denouncing the retaliatory deportation. Organizations like T’ruah, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, J Street, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and New York Jewish Agenda all expressed public outrage, while a letter from New Jewish Narrative was signed by organizations like Reconstructing Judaism, Aleh, Habonim Dror North America and the New Israel Fund (even the Zionist group Zioness raised concerns while still condemning Khalil).
While Khalil’s imprisonment is connected to Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, it can also be understood as an issue of both freedom of expression and the rights of immigrants, issues of long-held importance for U.S. Jews. This commitment to immigration justice comes in part from the legacy of Jewish immigrant experiences in the U.S., especially when Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and occupied Europe were roundly denied entry to the U.S. in the lead up to the Holocaust. The State Department is citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a law used during the Cold War to prevent immigration to the U.S. under the guise of national security, which blocked the immigration of many European Jews and was written by a known antisemite.
Part of what grew this coalition was the understanding that Khalil was not an isolated case but a signal of the growing threat Trump presents. “We’re not going to let people take away our rights and we are definitely not going to let the Trump administration use Mahmoud Khalil as an authoritarian test case and use Jews as a scapegoat in that instance,” said Goldblum, adding that Jews are safer when they are in partnership with people like Khalil.
This analysis has proven correct as the repression that started with Khalil quickly expanded: In recent weeks a Cornell University student protester was told to “surrender” to ICE, a South Korean student from Columbia may also face deportation, and a third Columbia student fled to Canada after ICE came after her for allegedly posting on social media about Palestine; these are just a few cases of the dozens or possibly hundreds who have been targeted. All of this is occurring as several academic groups sue the Trump administration over its attacks on education.
But these attacks are not occurring without pushback. On April 17, the sixth day of Passover — three days after Jewish Voice for Peace’s April 14 “emergency seder” in front of the New York City ICE headquarters — Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) will be leading another seder action, this time confronting the various forces of repression in New York City and demanding a new future for the city they love. Alongside songs sung in Yiddish, Ladino and Hebrew, they will lead a march into a “seven-foot-tall portal to the future” and into Central Park to hold the liberation seder. By bolstering relationships and building bonds they are vying to cultivate the power and community necessary to not only push back on attacks, but to fight for new possibilities.
As Trump promises more deportations and repression in the name of fighting antisemitism, the Jewish left in New York City and across the country is charting an alternative path forward for Jewish safety and a powerful anti-Zionist movement, rooted in coalition with each other and solidarity with directly targeted communities.
Shane Burley is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017). His work has appeared in places such as NBC News, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times and Protean. He is currently working on an anthology of anti-fascist writing called ¡No pasarán! and writing a book on antisemitism. Follow him on Twitter: @shane_burley1.
