Jewish Leaders Condemn "Never Again" Anti-ICE Event as "Utterly Contrary to Jewish Values"

BALTIMORE, Aug. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing over 1000 traditional rabbis in matters of public policy, today condemned the planned "Never Again Action Noise Rally" intended to disrupt operations on Monday at a federal contractor that helps process undocumented immigrants entering the United States. The event announcement refers to "Never Again" and "deportation," a combination designed to evoke images of Jews shipped in cattle cars to the murderous death camps of the Nazi era. The CJV called the event "a trivialization of the Holocaust and utterly contrary to authentic Jewish values."

"It's offensive in so many ways that one loses count," said Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Eastern Regional Vice President of the CJV. "It maligns the targeted company and its employees, defames ICE agents, displays woeful ignorance of history, trivializes and distorts the Holocaust, and is a vulgar insult to six million murdered Jews and the survivors of that horror. The fact that many of the protesters will be Jewish themselves merely makes it worse."

The CJV further noted that the event calls for protesters to "express rage," a half step short of an explicit call for violence – less than a month after an armed man attacked an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, and was shot and killed by police. Rabbi Pruzansky observed that "the same leftist politicians anxious to call criticism of their views 'incitement' seem to see nothing wrong in calling for 'rage' against people working on behalf of the government they claim to lead. Certainly, the organizers must take responsibility for any violence that transpires, and for threatening the lives and safety of government employees and contractors."

"Their misuse of Jewish values and identity is truly painful," added Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Managing Director of the CJV. "The event announcement even references Tisha B'Av, trotting out a day recalling Jewish tragedies utterly disregarded in leftist circles as a political prop. Until June 2019, everyone understood that comparing genocidal Nazi death camps to anything short of genocidal death camps was despicable, and had any right-wing politician made such a comparison, all these shofar-blowing justice warriors would have (quite correctly) joined us in strong condemnation. But they are happy to jettison millennia of Jewish teachings to support the mendacious meanderings of a 'progressive' superstar. And that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all."

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America, articulates and advocates for public policy positions based upon traditional Jewish thought. http://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/

SOURCE Coalition for Jewish Values

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