By Cheryl Cook
As I was driving home to Brooklyn from Manhattan, I looked over the bridge to see the Statue of Liberty. It’s a view I see often, but one I never take for granted. Etched into a plaque on its pedestal is a poem by Emma Lazarus that describes the America I grew up loving: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
A few weeks ago, I traveled to Minneapolis to march with thousands of people who are out every day in the bitter cold to protest the injustices and murders our own Federal ICE agents have committed on their streets. At some point, someone started singing “This land is your land” and soon the song resounded through the crowds. The mood was angry and also joyous; that combination was potent. We could barely see each other’s faces because we were so bundled up, and I wanted to take pictures, but I couldn’t take my hands out of my pockets. None of that mattered. The outcry was a clear “No! This is not our America.”
At the very center of our Torah, in Leviticus 19:18, we are commanded, “Ve’ahavta le-re’acha kamocha” (“Love your neighbor as yourself”). The Torah doesn’t just suggest love; it repeats the commandment 36 times—a constant, rhythmic heartbeat. This commandment is the one that appears most in the Torah, teaching us that loving the stranger, our neighbors, is the way to fix a broken world. For me, this means taking responsibility for each other, which is the deepest way to love.
In Minneapolis, I saw how that repetition is embodied. I heard stories about people cooking meals and doing laundry for their community members who are afraid to leave their homes, or taking in neighbors who can’t afford their rent because they’re afraid to go to work. At the memorial sites for George Floyd (z’l) and Renee Good (z’l), local residents were passing out handwarmers, foot warmers, and snow cleats. They had small fires going for people to warm their hands.
Many people I met urged me to get to know my neighbors. Not in a superficial way, but meaningfully so that we can protect each other when we need protecting. Right now in Minneapolis, neighbors who are less at risk when they leave their homes are caring for their neighbors who need it most. This is what love looks like. It is the deepest way to take responsibility for one another.
Before the march, I joined a gathering of 1,000 faith leaders from across the country. Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg of Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis acknowledged that many of us have felt at times a sense of non-belonging or exclusion–in coalition spaces and in our own faith traditions. But she urged us to rise above any personal grievances or differences in order to join together and meet this moment. I looked around and saw that this joining together was already happening right there in that room.
I was blown away by the amount of gratitude I received–from my Uber driver, my waitress, and almost everyone I encountered. When I ducked inside during the march for a reprieve from the cold, I met a woman and teenage daughter. The mother, who is caring for five immigrant families from her daughter’s school, asked where I was from and told me how grateful she was for all the people from outside their city pouring in to support and witness them.
In South Minneapolis at the All Nations Indian Church, I met with Rev. Joan Conroy, Senior Pastor; and Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy, Associate Pastor and Joan’s daughter. They are members of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. Nobody is illegal on stolen land, they said to me. They spoke about their own traumatic past and the retraumatization that this moment brings about.
Right now, two members of their community are missing, taken by ICE.
A friend reached out when she heard I’d been in Minneapolis and asked how she could help. My response was: start by saying yes to doing one thing. In other words, practice self-love by avoiding overwhelm that can lead to doing nothing at all. There is a role for everyone: designing posters, the presence of more clergy (I saw firsthand how exhausted the local clergy are though they continue their work), calling our representatives, sending food or performing other acts of care, accompanying people to school or court, doing back-end work for food drives, donating money, even making music at rallies and protests. There was a drummer playing when I joined the march and it was so powerful to pair my steps with his rhythm. It was clear his music kept the protestors’ spirits high.
I asked the same question–what can I do–to all the people I met there. Over and over, I was told that the way I can help is to share my experience with my community back home. Writing this piece is one of the ways I’m heeding their request.
This is our moment as a Jewish community to ask the question “What can we do?” Our Jewish tradition instructs us to love; this is who we are at our core. And in a time of cruelty and violence, love is a righteous and radical choice. It’s the only choice.
Twelve hours after I boarded my flight home to NY, Alex Pretti was murdered.
As I landed, the distance between Minneapolis and Brooklyn seemed to vanish. I returned to find that the same fear I witnessed there is vibrating here. Right now, ICE raids are taking place blocks from my front door, in the neighborhoods I walk every day. These families are being taken within the very shadow of the Statue of Liberty—the same bronze torch I look at from the bridge on my commute.
That statue should not be a silent witness or a relic of a lost era; We are the ones who must carry the light. If ever there was a moment for our Jewish organizations to show up fully, with unity, and with love for our neighbors all across this country, this is that moment.
