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<\/a><\/p>\nA line of interfaith leaders protest Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, Jan. 23, 2026. Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, fifth from left, was arrested and briefly detained during the demonstration. (Courtesy of Rabbi Aaron Weininger)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, the Jewish and interfaith chaplain at Macalester College in St. Paul, was briefly detained by police alongside leaders of other faiths while staging a protest at the airport.<\/p>\n
In photos and video from the protest just before the arrest, Kipley-Ogman can be seen delivering brief remarks while wearing a rainbow tallit and standing in a line at the airport\u2019s arrivals gate with several other faith leaders who hold hands and pray. Kipley-Ogman did not immediately return a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment.<\/p>\n
Rabbi Aaron Weininger, who leads the Conservative Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka, was also demonstrating at the airport and witnessed Kippley-Ogman\u2019s arrest. He said the rabbi \u201cwas in the lineup of clergy being prepared to get arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal was to disrupt operations because [the airport] is being used to deport folks, like three flights a day,\u201d Weininger told JTA. He described the overall mood of the protest as \u201cvery peaceful.\u201d In photos from the event, he is wearing a tallit and holding a sign reading \u201cICE Out of Minneapolis.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cThe clergy brought out the best of what faith does, which is lifting people up, building community and speaking up for justice. There was song, there was prayer, a lot of relationship-building. The crowd was calm but also very clear, calling to the end of the atrocities that ICE is committing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an Instagram video from the airport, Rabbi Daniel Kirzane of the Reform KAM Isaiah Israel in Chicago, wearing a beanie from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, said he had come to the protest because \u201cthe Torah teaches us that society and government are meant to protect people, not to scare them and not to brutalize them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three were among an estimated 100 rabbis and Jewish leaders on the ground for \u201cICE Out\u201d events across the Twin Cities Friday, after local clergy issued a broader call for a show of strength to combat the region\u2019s intensified ICE activity over the past few weeks. Many local Jewish institutions, including the federation, the JCC, Jewish day schools and Jewish social services groups, have condemned ICE\u2019s presence.<\/p>\n
While mainstream Jewish groups say they are not opposed to responsible immigration enforcement, a steady stream of distressing incidents in Minnesota \u2014 including including the shooting death of Renee Good by an ICE agent, the detention of a 5-year-old child<\/a>, and agents reportedly forcing open the door of a U.S. citizen<\/a> \u2014 have galvanized a faith-based response in starkly moral terms.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat did we learn from the Holocaust? We have to act and we have to resist,\u201d one visiting rabbi, Diane Tracht of Reform-affiliated Temple Israel near Gary, Indiana, told Religion News Service<\/a> while patrolling a heavily Hispanic and Somali region looking for ICE activity. \u201cIf I\u2019m not going to act and resist now, then I shouldn\u2019t call myself a rabbi and I can\u2019t be a proud Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n Dozens of the rabbis on the ground Friday were activated through T\u2019ruah, the Jewish social justice network. Also present<\/a> were Rabbi Jonah Pesner, head of the Union for Reform Judaism\u2019s religious action center; Avodah CEO Cheryl Cook; Bend the Arc CEO Jamie Beran; and members of Conservative Judaism\u2019s social justice commission, among others.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all rooted in the biblical commandment that we were slaves in Egypt, and we\u2019re to love the stranger,\u201d Pesner told TC Jewfolk, a local Jewish news site. \u201cThe biblical text repeats that 36 different times in 36 different ways, and it really calls our clergy to action.\u201d<\/p>\n The airport protest was just one of several anti-ICE events that local and national clergy staged in the Twin Cities area Friday, amid frigid temperatures that saw wind chill as low as 40-below. Temple Israel, a prominent Reform congregation in Minneapolis, also hosted an interfaith prayer service<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEach and every one of our traditions believes in the dignity of every human being,\u201d Temple Israel Senior Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman told the gathered crowd Friday morning, to applause.<\/p>\n After extolling the virtues of the region\u2019s diversity, Zimmerman added, \u201cWhen I began this work, and I was ordained in 1988, I said these words. But it wasn\u2019t against the reality that we have today. Now we have to walk these words. We have to live these words. And it is, in my mind, the moment that history will define us. And guess what, history is on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n Another local Jewish leader took a different protest tactic, urging a day of fasting on Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Jewish tradition, when a community faces crisis, violence, injustice or moral collapse, we do not look away. The Talmud describes an ancient custom of instituting communal fast days,\u201d Rabbi Tamar Magill-Grimm, senior rabbi at the Conservative Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights, said during an interfaith press conference earlier in the week. \u201cFasting is not about self-affliction. It is about clarity. It is about refusing to numb ourselves to suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis on Thursday, where he sought to defend the Trump administration\u2019s immigration policies while also hoping to \u201cturn down the temperature.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Faith communities have emerged as a crucial dimension of the protests, with Attorney General Pam Bondi announcing Thursday the arrests of three anti-ICE protesters who had been involved in disrupting a church service over the weekend. A planned anti-ICE rally in New York City Friday afternoon was set to feature Rabbi Stephanie Kolin, of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, as one of the speakers.<\/p>\n