Trump immigration protesters accused of 'trivialising the Holocaust' by rabbis

Religious leaders at the 'Coalition for Jewish Values' hit out at 'shofar-blowing justice warriors' demonstrating against the president's detention policies

Right-wing American rabbis have slammed “shofar-blowing justice warriors” for “trivialising the Holocaust” by protesting Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which claims to represent more than 1,000 “traditional rabbis” in matters of public policy, has consistently supported Trump on a range of issues and lodged its latest objections on Sunday.

A CJV statement condemned Monday’s ‘Never Again Action Noise Rally’ to protest against federal contractors who detain undocumented immigrants.

“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,” said the CJV. It called the event “a trivialisation of the Holocaust and utterly contrary to authentic Jewish values”.

In recent weeks hundreds of Jews, immigrants and activists have worked together to bring cities to a standstill, protesting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) methods of separating parents and children in huge camps at the border.

A Jewish group called Never Again Action has been driving the protests, which have been held outside detention centres as well as ICE buildings. Demonstrators have sung in Hebrew, English and Spanish, while many have worn yellow T-shirts reading ‘Never Again Para Nadie’ (Never Again For Anyone).

“It’s offensive in so many ways that one loses count,” said CJV’s Rabbi Steven Pruzanski. “It maligns the targeted company, defames ICE agents, displays woeful ignorance of history, trivialises and distorts the Holocaust, and is a vulgar insult to six million murdered Jews. The fact that many protesters are Jewish themselves merely makes it worse.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, a CJV director, bemoaned the protesters’ “misuse of Jewish values and identity is truly painful,” adding: “The event even references Tisha B’Av, trotting out a day recalling Jewish tragedies utterly disregarded in leftist circles as a political prop.

“Until June, comparing genocidal Nazi death camps to anything short of genocidal death camps was despicable. Had any right-wing politician made such a comparison, all these shofar-blowing justice warriors would have joined in 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.”