A Message from Rabbi Bauman – March 14, 2025
Dear Touro Synagogue Family,
Below is my message regarding the detainment of Mahmoud Khali. A version of this, co-authored by myself and fellow Jewish communal leaders Aaron Bloch of Jewish Federation and Sara Lewis of NCJW, has been submitted to the Advocate.
Praying for your strength and peace of mind amidst an upside down world.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Bauman
American Jews love America, and we must not allow its degradation in our name.
In one of my favorite movies, The American President written by Aaron Sorkin, President Andrew Shepherd played by Michael Douglas says the following. “America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.’ You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”
This idealistic and poignant passage and the very real and serious challenge it poses to those who love this country has been at the forefront of my mind as I’ve grappled with the arrest and detention of Mr. Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States and leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University who was taken into the custody of ICE agents at his home in New York and is now being held in an Immigrant Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana. Mr. Khalil’s apprehension, apparently under the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, was undertaken by the Trump Administration in the name of the Jewish community’s safety, and so as a rabbi and someone deeply concerned with Jewish safety, I feel compelled to speak to you and publicly as well, not to defend Khalil’s words or actions, but to uplift our commitment to the rule of law and due process.
It must be said that American Jews have never felt more unsafe than we do right now. Since October 7, 2023, we have experienced an onslaught of antisemitism in the form of vile and violent rhetoric targeting all Jews and all Zionists, (and over 90% of Jews believe the State of Israel has a right to exist – the simplest definition of Zionism); a constant public misrepresentation of our history and identity by individuals and groups who find our presence and practices threatening; and an exclusion from political coalitions – formal and informal – of which we have long been a part. These attacks come at American Jews from the Right and the Left, because we blend in too much or not enough, and always because we dare to assert our distinctiveness as a people with traditions and commitments that do not fit neatly into a particular Western box labeled “religion”, as we are a bit more like a tribe than a religion.
Nowhere has this been more egregious than on college campuses where Jewish students and faculty, often regardless of their views on Israeli policy, have been vilified, harassed, and at times physically assaulted. If asked, most members of the American Jewish community will express that they are appalled by the statements and actions of protest leaders such as Mr. Khalil. Most of us believe that while the pro-Palestinian encampments of the last year have sheltered students, including some Jewish students, who have good-faith objections to the manner in which Israel conducted its war against Hamas and a deep and justified concern for the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza and beyond, the protests have also platformed activists who spew antisemitic rhetoric and cynically glorify Hamas and its genocidal tactics – including mutilation, burning alive, rape, and the taking and torturing of hostages – as a form of righteous resistance. Most of us also feel that certain universities at certain times have fallen short of their obligation to protect their Jewish and Israeli community members from being targeted in dangerous and unjust ways.
At the same time, the American Jewish community, its individuals and its legacy institutions, have a long history of activism in defense of civil liberties. We are painfully aware, because of the experiences of violence and expulsion that most of our families carried with us to these shores, that the rights guaranteed by the US Constitution have been the primary source of American Jewish safety over the years. In fact, the American Jewish community is the most secure and most prosperous Jewish Diaspora in history, and that is because we live in a nation that strives to honor individual personhood and the rights of free expression, freedom of religion, and due process under law.
Khalil has a history of leading protests – some of which included violence, property damage, and significant disruption of campus life. These protests have sometimes included expressed support for terrorism against Jews and Israelis, including Hamas-branded propaganda and images praising terrorist leaders. We honestly do not know the full extent of his individual speech or action, nor whether they crossed legal lines. (First amendment rights are sacred, and they are also not without exception and do not cover acts of violence, harassment, vandalism, squatting, or occupying buildings). What we do know is that due process is essential, and we must not allow fear to alienate us from our convictions when it comes to civil rights.
Under U.S. law, legal foreign residents can lose their status and face deportation under specifically enumerated circumstances, but the burden of proof rests with the government. The revocation of a green card requires evidence and hearings. While immediate detention may be warranted in cases involving imminent danger or flight risk, the government has not made such an accusation in this instance.Bypassing these legal protections undermines fundamental due process rights and establishes a dangerous precedent, leaving all of us vulnerable to potential governmental overreach.
In light of all these paradoxical realities, American Jews must not consent to the degradation of fundamental civil liberties in the name of fighting antisemitism, in this case or in any other. Yes, we want to be safer. Yes, we want universities and schools and places of business and community organizations to live up to their commitments to value the humanity and individuality of every person including Jews, no matter our political beliefs or religious commitments. Yes, we believe that some of the activism against the war in Gaza is in sympathy with terrorist ideologies that poison our public sphere. But the shredding of our collective constitutionally protected rights does not make Jews – or anyone else – safer and in fact does just the opposite, because it leaves us all at the mercy of the whims of an erratic ruler rather than standing firmly upon a set of rights guaranteed us all by law.
Our Jewish tradition teaches that we must treat others with fairness and respect, even those whom we might consider to be our enemies. Our American tradition teaches that we must never circumvent free speech or due process to silence someone whose views we dislike, lest all our rights be diminished. The voice that says, “Just cut corners. Give the federal government a pass to detain an activist whose speech we may not like and to deport a legal resident without due process, because the other way is too hard and takes too long,” is a voice of anger and fear, and it does no honor to our country or our religious community to indulge it. We must never relinquish our freedom for a fleeting sense of safety, but rather we must continue to champion due process and civil rights for everyone. Then and only then can we stand and sing about the land of the free.