On Sunday, hundreds of Jewish community members gathered outside the Baltimore ICE Office to pray, mourn and demand that ICE end its “attacks on our immigrant communities.”
The Tisha B’Av demonstration, sponsored by Jews United for Justice and a coalition of Baltimore and Washington, D.C.-area synagogues, came in response to the recent mass deportations and detentions of immigrants.
The Trump administration has directed immigration officials to make at least 3,000 daily arrests, according to The Washington Post. In a July 28 statement, Sen. Chris Van Hollen said the Trump administration has pursued a “cruel mass deportation agenda” where many immigrants are held under “inhuman conditions” at places such as the Baltimore ICE office and “shipped off without any due process.”
“Tisha B’Av is all about recognizing and mourning the loss of sanctuary, and that is so intertwined for me with what we’re seeing right now,” Matan Zeimer, JUFJ’s Maryland policy director, told Washington Jewish Week.
“For us as Jews to show up and display that we are not only mourning our own history of loss of sanctuary, but we’re mourning what we’re seeing happen right now and today feels not only emblematic, but true to the nature of the holiday, which seems particularly powerful.”
The local partnering congregations included Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, Am Kolel Jewish Renewal Community and the New Synagogue Project, as well as 11 Baltimore-area synagogues.
“It’s been extremely clear … that Jewish communities are really activated around immigrant justice and feel deeply passionate,” Zeimer said.
“Our afternoon mincha service [was] deeply grounded in prayer, in ritual,” he added. “And I think a lot of folks [are] looking for a place that they can go observe the holiday but that they know will also be grounded in what they’re currently seeing and experiencing under this administration and in these really hard and uncertain times.”
After the afternoon service, the nearly 250 attendees encircled the Immigration Court at the George Fallon Federal Building in downtown Baltimore, which houses the local ICE office.
Matan Zeimer, center, JUFJ’s Maryland policy director, advocates for immigrant justice at the Aug. 3 Tisha B’Av demonstration. (Photo by Rabbi David Shneyer)
Zeimer said he hoped to create a “very clear visual statement to the public [and] to our elected officials that we as Jewish communities will not stand for the current treatment of immigrant communities, that we will fight for our shared safety and well-being.”
“What I hope to accomplish is for our Baltimore and Maryland legislators to see how serious the Jewish community is about defending our immigrant neighbors,” Rabbi Ariana Katz of Hinenu Baltimore, one of the main organizers of the event, said.
Attendees heard from activists representing the advocacy groups CASA, the DMV Accompaniment Network and the Stop Avelo Campaign and learned how to support immigrants in the battle against ICE.
Rabbi David Shneyer of Rockville’s Am Kolel led portions of the mincha and chanted the prophetic reading from Isaiah at the event.
(Photo by Jim Schmitz)
“The illegal arrest and detention of people — it’s not who we are as a nation and not who we are as a Jewish people that has experienced oppression more than once throughout our history,” said Shneyer, who added that he was seeking a more meaningful way to observe Tisha B’Av this year.
“We are mourning the losses that we have experienced as a people, remembering those terrible times in our own history. But here we are in 2025, and there are other peoples who are suffering terribly,” he said.
Zeimer also spoke to the shared history between Jewish values and immigrant justice.
“Throughout history, there’s the stories of Jews as migrants, Jews as immigrants, the movement of Jews across regions [and] continents, so we know in our own experiences that standing up for immigrant neighbors, our family members and our friends is totally intertwined with fighting for our own safety and justice,” he said.
“There are at least 36 references to welcoming the stranger [and] how we treat strangers in our midst,” Shneyer said. “Our values of justice and peace are integral to the prayers.”
He listed Deuteronomy 23:16 — “He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him” — and Exodus 22:21 — “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
“Our traditions remind us constantly in our prayers every day that we were an oppressed people at one time,” Shneyer said. “Because of that, we have a special obligation to help those who are being oppressed.”
Shneyer said it’s “horrendous” when young children are separated from their parents during deportations and detentions.
“The feeling of loss is profound and growing in this country, amongst particularly Latino immigrants, but it’s also affecting other communities as well,” he said.
Shneyer’s own family — a great-aunt and great-uncle — were among the millions of Jewish immigrants turned away from the U.S. in 1924 and told to go back to Europe: “There was no place for them to go.”
Between his family history and Jewish lineage, Shneyer felt it was important to stand up for what he feels is right.
“It’s a real show of Jewish solidarity with those who are suffering in this country and who are feeling threatened with deportation [and] loss of their jobs,” Shneyer said. “It’s a tragedy.”
