More than 50 rabbis and cantors, including leaders of some of New York City’s most prominent synagogues, signed an open letter Tuesday asking Mayor Eric Adams and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to protect immigrants from the Trump administration’s planned mass deportations.
The letter, the latest in a succession of recent statements by Jewish leaders opposing President Donald Trump’s policies, comes at an unprecedentedly fraught time in the politics of New York City and state. The Trump administration has moved to drop corruption charges against Adams so that he will be able to help the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
The arrangement has led to a cascade of resignations at top levels of city government and beyond along with mounting calls for Adams to resign — which he has rebuffed.
And relations between Hochul and Adams aren’t exactly tranquil. The evening before the rabbis’ letter was published, Hochul said she would be meeting with “key leaders” to discuss taking the step of removing Adams from office, which no governor has ever done in the state’s history.
Against that backdrop, the letter asks Adams and Hochul “to be the leaders we desperately need at this moment, and do all you can to resist Trump’s terrifying anti-immigrant agenda.” It does not reference the controversy surrounding Adams.
The letter calls on the mayor and governor to “restrict” immigration raids in schools and houses of worship, which are now permitted under new federal guidelines. It also calls on the leaders to refrain from sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to not use jails to detain immigrants. And it hearkens back to American Jews’ immigrant heritage, particularly in New York, as well as past antisemitic persecution.
“We also know in our bones and from our modern history the danger of an unchecked xenophobic government scapegoating ‘outsiders’ to gain power, preying on a population experiencing hard economic times to gain support for a violent and destructive agenda,” the letter said. “We will not stand by while history repeats itself. You, our state and local leaders, must not either.”
The letter follows others signed by Jewish leaders or organizations opposing Trump’s or Republicans’ policies on transgender athletes, mass deportations, Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. Jewish groups have also joined lawsuits challenging Trump’s immigration actions.
Many branches of Judaism signed the letter
The letters signatories hail from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, and include leaders of large synagogues such as Temple Emanu-El, B’nai Jeshurun, Ansche Chesed, Congregation Beth Elohim, Forest Hills Jewish Center, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, Society for the Advancement of Judaism and others. Not all rabbis who signed appended the names of their synagogues.
The letter was organized by a consortium of progressive Jewish groups in the city, including Bend the Arc, the Jewish refugee aid group HIAS, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, New York Jewish Agenda, the immigration advocacy group Never Again Action, the liberal rabbinic human rights group T’ruah and The Workers Circle.