Family separation and refugee cap reinvigorate Jews' activist roots: 'We've always been immigrants'
LOS ANGELES - His voice booming through a loudspeaker, Rabbi Aryeh Cohen stood near an immigrant detention center in downtown Los Angeles and urged an end to the Trump administration's family separation policy. Surrounded by more than 200 members of the Jewish community on their annual day of mourning, Tisha B'av, Cohen stressed the importance of moving the traditional fast from the synagogue to the streets.
The rabbi's passionate message wasn't directed only at followers of his faith. It was squarely aimed at Mexicans, Central Americans and other immigrants struggling to gain asylum in the United States - modern refugees, not unlike many Jews in generations past.
"The Jewish community with one loud voice is saying, 'Close the camps,'" Cohen told the protesters gathered at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a prison facility used to temporarily house immigration detainees. Some nodded, holding signs above their heads that read, "This is what 'Never Again' looks like,"
