Supporters travel hundreds of miles for the Jews for Salah Vigil

Photos by Andy Chen

Milwaukee’s Jodi Melamed convenes the Jews for Salah vigil outside of the Clay County jail in Indiana.

A coalition of Midwestern Jews from across political and denominational spectrums, joined by Muslims, Christians, elected officials, immigrant rights advocates and others, traveled hundreds of miles Sunday to gather outside the Clay County Jail in Brazil, Indiana, to oppose the detention of Salah Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.

More than 150 people rallied in front of the detention center where Mr. Sarsour has been held since March 30 to demand, as their T-shirts proclaimed: “Free Salah Sarsour” and “End ICE Terror.”

“We have participants from across political and geographical divisions, a huge spectrum of the Jewish community,” said lead organizer Jodi Melamed, Ph.D. “We all want freedom and justice for Salah. All of these Jews coming together from such diverse places speaks to the power of Salah’s story and to our commitment not to let him be taken from us in the name of Jewish safety. 

“We oppose the state terror done in the name of Jewish Americans against Salah and other Palestinians,” Melamed said. (Melamed advocated for Sarsour’s release in an opinion article in the April 25 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.)

Brazil’s a very small town in the middle of vast farmlands, “but people came from Indianapolis, Bloomington and Champaign Urbana, from Chicago and Milwaukee, on a bus, in cars, Jews and non-Jews, immigrant rights folks,” she continued. “We are really grateful they want to stand with us to protest the conditions Salah’s experiencing in detention, which everyone in detention is experiencing. We want to say, ‘Free Salah and free them all.’”

A rabbi from Indianapolis blows the shofar, a call to prayer and a Jewish symbol of return from exile.

Jailing Salah Sarsour

Federal immigration agents arrested Sarsour, 53, a permanent legal resident in the United States for 33 years, on March 30. After a few hours’ stop in Chicago, they took him to the Indiana jail, about 300 miles away from his Milwaukee home and family. He has not seen them since.

An April 2 post on the Department of Homeland Security’s website announced his apprehension, accusing him of excluding information in his green card application about an arrest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when he was a teenager. His attorneys and supporters say that is not true and that he is being targeted because he is a high-profile activist for Palestinians. His attorneys have said publicly they intend to fight the charges.

The Clay County Jail is “a common landing spot for people arrested in the Upper Midwest,” the Chicago Tribune reported.  “Detainees there typically have their cases in either the Indianapolis or Chicago immigration court, where Sarsour was originally told to appear.”

However, in Sarsour’s case, federal authorities “made the unusual move” to transfer his case to Kansas City, the Chicago Tribune reported. Federal authorities also assigned it to a deputy chief immigration judge two levels more senior than the standard immigration judge that usually handles the vast majority of removal proceedings, the article said.

Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), made her second wellness-check visit to Sarsour during the vigil. She released a statement yesterday, saying, “Salah is being targeted for his advocacy for Palestinians, but his mistreatment is part of the Trump administration’s larger campaign of hate against immigrants. Behind closed doors in ICE facilities around the country, people, including women and young children, face neglect and abuse.”

“Salah is in jail for speaking up for Palestine,” agreed Rachel Ida Buff, Ph.D. Buff is the Wisconsin spokesperson for Jews for Salah. The historian of migration and immigrant rights movements is an expert in international political mobilization and repression since the Cold War. “He is in jail because the United States and Israel collaborate on everything, including who should be detained,” she said.

“We recognize the midnight raid, the deportation, the concentration camps—we recognize this,” Buff told Wisconsin Muslim Journal. “Our people went through it. 

“And one of the things the (Department of Homeland Security) says is, ‘He advocated for Palestine; he’s pro-Hamas.’ It is the oldest immigration story in the book. You get here, and you worry about your people back home. And you advocate for them. That is what Salah and many people do.  That is what Jews did in this country in the 1940s. It is a very American experience.”

Rachel Ida Buff, in a bright orange vest, told WMJ, “We know Salah Sarsour and much of the Palestinian community to be good friends of Jews. To arrest him and say it is about protecting us from antisemitism is complete hogwash.”

Making the trip

A number of the vigil organizers traveled to Clay County Saturday. “We wanted to be there early Saturday to do everything,” said Buff, who drove down with her husband. 

Melamed, her husband and “our tactical leader drove down late Saturday morning to scout out the site for safety issues and plan the next day’s vigil on the ground,” she said. “We walked between the parking lot and the jail, and walked around the courthouse.” 

Janan Najeeb, executive director of the Muslim Women’s Coalition and a prominent activist, woke up Sunday before sunrise, as did others, to catch the 5 a.m. bus taking participants from Milwaukee to Brazil, Indiana. “It would have been easy to find many reasons not to make the trip,” she thought. Rain fell, her knee ached and they would be on the road for 10 hours in one day. “But this is an important cause and involves someone from the Milwaukee community,” she told the WMJ as the big bus carried about 40 passengers to the vigil. “The fact that an American resident of more than 32 years can be snatched from Milwaukee and transported across state lines is unconscionable. It’s shameful this is happening in America!

Najeeb recognized a number of her fellow passengers. “Many of these people are individuals who are working for justice at all levels,” she said. “It’s an honor to be in the same space with them.

“I recognize many Jewish individuals, particularly Jewish Voice for Peace members. There are Christians, Muslims and others, younger people and retirees. State Rep. Ryan Clancy is on the bus, as well as the tireless activist Jim Carpenter and his wife, Eldeen. I saw a few people from Madison and Nat Godley with the Turners.”

State Rep. Ryan Clancy told WMJ, “Salah Sarsour is a beloved member of our community who has been ripped from us and locked away to face inhumane conditions merely because of what he stands for and who he is.”

Salah Sarsour’s oldest son Kareem Sarsour sat on the bus next to his youngest son, Rukn, 3. His wife, Seema, and sons Salah, 8, and Izz, 5, were across the aisle. “Jodi from Jewish Voice for Peace told us about his vigil a few weeks ago,” he told WMJ. “We’re very grateful for the opportunity. We hope it’s a step toward my father’s release and reuniting him with his family. 

“Being on a bus filled with brave and beautiful people gives us tremendous support and love to keep moving forward,” he said.

As the bus rolled down the highway in the rain, Rep. Clancy told WMJ, “Salah Sarsour has been a beloved member of our community for over three decades. He came to us from Palestine, where he was subjected to violence, abuse and detention as a child under Israeli occupation, and has become a leader, an employer, an advocate and an example. He is the best of us. It’s our responsibility to stand up when our community is attacked.

“And to be clear, he is an advocate for our community, a Muslim and a Palestinian who has been outspoken against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and for the rights of Palestinians and for us all. And it is those inseparable parts of him that made him a target for the Trump regime.

“I’m proud to join so many people from different faiths and backgrounds in gathering around him and his family today.”

Congresswoman Gwen Moore and Kareem Sarsour, Salah’s oldest son, greet each other at the Jews for Salah vigil.

Dr. Maqbool and Naheed Arshad of Brookfield went from Chicago by car Sunday morning. “It rained nearly all the way there, blinding at times, but as soon as we got there, it stopped,” Naheed Arshad said.  They saw “a huge crowd at a little nearby shopping plaza” and walked with them across from the detention center. 

“People from Indiana and Illinois were asking us about Salah, to tell them more about what kind of individual he is,” she said. “I told them that whenever I messaged him about any concern, he would always respond in five minutes. And it wasn’t just any response. He would always say this is how I’m going to address it, this is what I’m going to do. 

“This individual was always there to help somebody fix a problem and do whatever he could, any time of the day. He was always available. I’ve never met anyone else like him, who responds so immediately, with genuine concern.”

As the crowd chanted and speakers spoke, Rep. Moore used her authority as a congresswoman to check on her constituent in the detention center. Later, when the protestors gathered in a park for lunch, she rejoined the group, reported on Sarsour’s condition and told them Sarsour had heard them in his cell and felt encouraged.

“That news energized us,” Arshad said. But afterwards, she felt conflicting emotions, she said. To see this diverse group come together to support him “was heart-warming,” she said. At the same time, she’s sad. “It’s so unfair that we’re sitting in the comfort of our home, eating and doing whatever we want, and he’s been taken away from his beautiful family, his grandkids there Sunday, right outside.”

From left to right, Maysoun Ahmad, Naheed Arshad, Janan Najeeb and Amal Amro all traveled hundreds of miles to call for the release of ISM president Salah Sarsour.

Defending the rights of immigrants

“I want to emphasize that this is a high-profile case, and we don’t want to ignore anyone who’s getting picked up,” Buff said. “But, historically, advocating for the high-profile case raises consciousness that allows you to organize for everybody’s rights.

“The deportation of Salah Sarsour is part of a cruel campaign of deportations against our immigrant neighbors, and is reminiscent of the state terror faced by our ancestors. We refuse to be bystanders and we say never again, for anyone.

“We organized this event because we felt so upset about his kidnapping,” she added. “We’ve built a very unique coalition of Midwestern Jews who are all appalled by Mr. Sarsour’s situation. We all share a deep conviction that as Jews we need to advocate for Salah’s release.”

In an interview with Wisconsin Muslim Journal on Monday, Shahanna McKinney-Baldon, a Jewish community leader based in Madison and member of a new organization named Wisconsin Jews for Justice, said she “felt overwhelmed” after the vigil. “On one hand, it’s so horrible what’s happened and, on the other hand, there is this feeling of encouragement because of all the people who came together from different parts of our community, folks and organizations who haven’t collaborated before. It really felt like the beginning of a new way of coming together.” 

Wisconsinites Shahanna McKinney Baldon and her mother, Harriet McKinney Mandelman, speaking together to the assembled crowd.