Friends,
We don't yet have your name on our urgent Congressional petition supporting the constitutional rights and freedoms of lawful US residents.
Our petition follows the arrest on Monday of Mohsen Mahdawi, a lawful permanent resident who has been in the US for 10 years, and who Donald Trump is apparently now trying to deport based on nothing more than his peaceful, pro-Palestinian activism.
Born in Jenin in the occupied West Bank and educated in a refugee camp, Mahdawi is an pro-Palestinian protest leader who later led dialogue efforts on Columbia's campus that brought him into regular contact with Israeli and Jewish students, many of whom are now speaking out on his behalf. Our history and our values compel us to speak out too.
Right now, J Street champion Rep. Becca Balint is circulating a letter in Congress pressing the administration for answers and insisting that Mr. Mahdawi’s constitutional rights are upheld. Can you read, sign and share our petition to Congress today?
In case you missed it, Jeremy’s full email from yesterday is below. Thank you, sincerely, for your support.
– Lily Adelstein, Deputy Director of Government Affairs
FROM: Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street
SUBJECT: In Every Generation: Our Generation’s Time to Answer the Call
This weekend, many of us celebrated Passover with our families. During the seder, we recalled how “in every generation” threats and enemies rise up against us, and we undoubtedly recounted the suffering our own families experienced.
Jewish families around the world have seen it all in the last century. State-sponsored terror. Dictators trampling the rule of law. Minorities forced to hide in fear. Educational institutions intimidated. Media bent to the state’s will.
We also – until now – have shared something else: A belief that these things could never happen here. At American seders, there's always gratitude for the life we’ve built here in America.
We came here as refugees. We studied and learned in amazing educational institutions. Our rights were protected by the Constitution and the rule of law. For several generations in the US, all has been well.
That is, until the threat rises again – as it does in every generation.
Which brings me to the story of Columbia University graduate student Mohsen Mahdawi.
Mahdawi was arrested Monday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Burlington, Vermont. Having been tricked into showing up for a fake naturalization interview, he was taken into custody for nothing more than his political views and activism.
Born in Jenin in the occupied West Bank and educated in a refugee camp, Mahdawi has been a lawful permanent resident of the US for a decade as well as a student at Columbia, where he was co-president of the Palestinian Student Union and active in protests against the war in Gaza.
A practicing Buddhist, Mahdawi took a step back from leading campus pro-Palestine organizing and participated in dialogue efforts that brought him into regular contact with Israeli and Jewish students, many of whom are speaking out publicly on his behalf.
He was a visible figure at Columbia and nationally, appearing on 60 Minutes in December 2023, where he made the case that, “The fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The constructive role Mahdawi tried to play, attested to by his fellow students, doesn’t appear to have mollified far-right Jewish organizations pushing to deport students like him. The Canary Mission, for instance, has a page on its site devoted to Mahdawi, and Betar-US boasted on X back in January that Mahdawi was on their “deport list.”
While the disgusting behavior of groups like these are, I believe, thoroughly repugnant to the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans, I am astounded by how unaware the community is that this assault on students is being fueled by a cabal of right-wing Jewish thugs in the name of fighting antisemitism.
It is time for our community to call these groups out and to distance ourselves from their rhetoric and tactics.
And – just as important – we must not allow President Trump and the far MAGA right outside our community to use the fight against antisemitism as a pretext for their anti-immigrant, anti-education, anti-rule-of-law agenda.
We must tell Trump and the ideologues in his administration: You Don’t Speak for Us.
A lot of issues divide Jewish America – whether it’s our opinion of what Israel’s government is doing, what constitutes antisemitism or even who we think should be allowed to speak in Jewish institutions. J Street has strong opinions on all these things and deep, legitimate disagreements with many other Jewish organizations who sit both to our left and to our right.
But this moment – with the most fundamental pillars of the country we call home being ripped apart – demands a clear, strong, unified call.
When they come for Mohsen Mahdawi through deception and deceit, when they seize Rumeysa Ozturk off the street in broad daylight, when they ship legal immigrants abroad without due process and say there’s no way to get them back – the overwhelming majority of Jewish America needs to stand up and make clear that this is not how the fight against antisemitism, against hate and against bigotry should be conducted.
I am sure most people who support groups like AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League are as horrified as all of us at J Street are by what this administration is doing.
I would love to join together with these groups – many of whom J Street regularly disagrees with – to make a powerful statement that, from wall to wall, our community opposes how the Trump Administration is using the fight against antisemitism as a pretext to target, detain and potentially deport students and to try to intimidate universities into relinquishing their academic freedom.
In the days and weeks ahead, as the going gets even tougher, I fear, I can assure you that J Street has no intention of self-censoring or of backing down. We will continue to sound the alarm and do all in our power to meet the threat “of this generation” to our way of life in this country.
Even more powerful than J Street doing this alone, would be for the left, right and center of our community to come together in common cause – ready to fight for the values and principles that have made the United States a wonderful and welcoming home for our people.
Yours in determination,
Jeremy Ben-Ami
President, J Street
PS. Please read, sign and share our petition supporting a Congressional letter about Mr. Mahdawi's case.
