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12 July 25 • 2019
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MARC SUSSMAN
O
n Friday, July 12, demonstra-
tors took to the streets of cities
across the state and across the
country as part of “Lights for Liberty”
vigils to protest the Trump administra-
tion’
s immigration policies.
In Detroit, a crowd estimated at
600 stood before the Rosa Parks
Federal Building, the headquar-
ters of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), lining both sides of
Mount Elliott Street, waving signs and
chanting slogans, beginning well before
the official starting time of 6 p.m. At
7 p.m., a series of speakers, begin-
ning with Holocaust survivor Rene
Lichtman of West Bloomfield, present-
ed their objections to current policy.
Drivers of dozens of cars honked
their horns and flashed thumbs-up
signs to the protesters they drove past
the rally. No counter-protesters were on
the scene, but some police officers were
stationed near the peaceful protest.
Many in the crowd were Jewish, such
as Sharon Luckerman of Detroit, who
commented on the ethnic and religious
backgrounds of those at the rally. “I
was moved to see the mix of Detroiters
at the ICE rally. When Detroit works,
when it brings people together, that’
s
when Detroit’
s a beautiful city,” she
said. “I was at the rally as a Jew and as a
Detroiter. By 2019, we should be much
further along in the way our country-
men and women treat people, includ-
ing immigrants.”
A large sign held aloft by a team
of demonstrators declared “the
Birmingham Temple Congregation for
Humanistic Judaism Declares Solidarity
with Immigrants and Refugees.”
Rabbi Jeffrey Falick of the
Birmingham Temple, who attended the
protest, explained his congregation’
s
involvement: “What is going on at the
border is beyond our imagination,
a flagrant dismissal of human rights
beyond anything we could have antic-
ipated from a modern American gov-
ernment.
“It represents one of the greatest
crises of moral failure in the modern
history of America, which, though we
Protest at
Detroit ICE
Jews join vigils to express
objections to immigration policies.
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“We have to be there for the stranger; if we
haven’
t learned that from Jewish
history, then what is the point?”
— RABBI JEFFREY FALICK
The Birmingham Temple in Farmington Hills was well represented at the protest.
FRAN SHOR