As the Jewish community marked the holiday of Purim this week, a group of anti-war Jewish activists and allies occupied Trump Tower in New York in protest over the planned deportation of legal U.S. resident and Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. The timing of such an act of civil disobedience, while coincidental, is profound. The holiday of Purim is a testament to the will of Jewish self-preservation — intricately entangled with the liberation of all peoples.
Briefly, the Purim holiday tells the story of Haman, advisor to the Persian king, who plots to kill all the Jews in the Empire. The secretly-Jewish Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai foil Haman's plan when Esther reveals her Jewishness to her husband and convinces the king to spare her people from genocide. Many consider this the most joyous day on the Jewish Calendar. My children and their friends at their preschool, for example, dressed up and celebrated with parties and parades all week long.
The contrast between their joy and the suffering of Palestinian and children in our own country emerges more starkly than ever. In particular, one woman and baby due in just weeks, both U.S. citizens who embody phases of the lifespan that the conservative right claims to revere, who are now missing their husband and father.
Khalil is a green card holder and legal permanent resident. He is married to an American; his wife is 8 months pregnant. A recent masters level graduate of Columbia University, Khalil served as a student negotiator between the Columbia administration and students protesting Israeli violence in Gaza following October 7. On Saturday March 8, he was forced into a van in front of his pregnant wife by ICE without a warrant in what Trump described as the “first arrest of many” as his administration punishes campus opposition to our government’s support of Netanyahu’s agenda. Columbia likely knew this was coming; Khalil wrote to the University repeatedly asking for help in the weeks before his abduction to no response. Some accuse senior university officials of actively providing his name to ICE.
The Department of Homeland Security argues it can deport Khalil because he has led “activities aligned to Hamas” but has yet to provide evidence of this. While a federal judge has temporarily blocked the 30 year old’s expulsion from the country, all defenders of free speech would be wise to take Trump’s warning seriously that this administration will criminalize dissent against Israel and support for Palestinians - and, inevitably, other forms of peaceful protest. What does it mean that such a prominent university appears complicit in this arrest as part of its proclaimed effort to fight antisemitism, even when so many Jewish students at Columbia and elsewhere call out, “not in our name”?
IfNotNow, a non-profit organization formed by “American Jews organizing our community to end U.S. support for Israel's apartheid system and demand equality, justice, and a thriving future for all Palestinians and Israelis,” highlights the tension between the Purim holiday and our current political landscape, sharing a post on March 11 that reads:
As Jews of conscience who are devastated by the ongoing atrocities in Gaza committed in our name, many of us carry this question: How can we observe a holiday this year that embraces revelry, pageantry, and play?
In the story of Esther, Mordecai entreats his niece to step into her Jewishness to prevent atrocities from happening. Just like Esther, we are invited to step into our power - not by moving away from our Jewishness, but by stepping into it in order to enact change. We are called upon to speak up, take a stance, and rise up with integrity in our wholeness.
Here is the truth: Jews are not a monolith. To many of us, Khalil’s arrest, detention, and potential deportation are antithetical to Jewish values and our culture’s tradition of protest and resistance.
The Anti Defamation League’s endorsement of this administration and its treatment of a nonviolent protester constitutes one of many betrayals of our cultural and religious history. This faction of Jewish leadership once again allies itself with an Evangelical right that masks its own hatred of and prejudice towards Jews in the guise of defending our right to existence in Israel.
Now, the right is using the spirit of Purim to criminalize, sanction and shut down Jewish solidarity with the Palestinian cause in the U.S. The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank behind the infamous Project 2025 animating the policy of the second Trump administration, claims a “Hamas Support Network” on college campuses “fosters antisemitism” and that “there is an active cabal of Jew-haters, Israel-haters, and Americans-haters in Washington … likely funded by the same backers that support the [Hamas Support Network],” including over a dozen Democratic members of Congress. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, co-chair of J Street’s Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet, explains how the Heritage Foundation’s newly-launched “Project Esther,” hijacks the spirit of Purim and is a “deep disservice to its namesake by focusing narrowly on left-wing critics of Israel while ignoring surging right-wing antisemitism”:
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Documents from Project Esther reveal a disquieting strategy. It reportedly seeks to identify and pressure individuals it labels as “masterminds,” including Jewish figures such as philanthropist George Soros and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. This language evokes long standing antisemitic tropes of Jewish control and manipulation — tropes that have historically fueled discrimination and violence. The project also proposes targeting “foreign members vulnerable to deportation” and working with law enforcement to “generate uncomfortable conditions” for progressive activists, raising serious concerns about civil liberties and the weaponization of antisemitism for political ends. We’ve already seen this playbook in action at Columbia University, with Trump declaring it “the first of many.” History shows the dangers of authoritarian regimes defining citizenship based on identity and political views.
To fight for the rights of protesters like Mahmoud Khalil is to step into our Jewishness like Esther on Purim and beyond. Like hers, this is an act not only of defiance but self-preservation.
A recent piece in The New Republic argued that the Trump administration’s use of antisemitism to justify a crackdown will endanger many Jews. Author Emily Tamkin denounced the arrest as a “cynical ploy by an administration full of people who promote and enable antisemitic conspiracies, which is fixated on attacking higher education, free speech, free assembly, and immigration and due process norms by using Jews, Jewish fear, and antisemitism as pretense to do that.”
The oft-quoted German pastor Martin Niemöller comes to mind, amended slightly: “first they came for the protestors…”. We know the rest. No one - certainly not Jewish people - is safe under this authoritarian administration that seems intent on undermining free speech and democracy itself. Any one of us could be or love Mahmoud Khalil. Any one of us can be an Esther.
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