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on the cover

12 July 25 • 2019
jn

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

