On the first night of Hanukah, religious and community groups march in solidarity against the recent deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and others

This year, when the first night of Hanukah came to Brooklyn, Jewish, Arab, and Muslim demonstrators commemorated the holiday with an evening of protest against police brutality.

Three New York activist groups — Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, the Arab American Association of New York, and Bend the Arc — were taking part in #ChanukahAction, a planned night of national protest by the Jewish community against police violence and the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and others at the hands of law enforcement. Similar protests were held by Jewish groups in cities across the country, including Albany, Boston, and San Francisco.

Ophir Bruck (@OphirBruck) Tonight Jews across the nation march in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter, SF's Market St shut down. #ChanukahAction pic.twitter.com/IGvmzAs2wV

The New York protest was also part of #ThisStopsToday’s 11 Days of Action, so named because of the 11 times Eric Garner pleaded “I can’t breathe” while officers restrained him. The event drew a crowd diverse in race, age, and faith, religious and community leaders, as well as politicians and local activists. In total, well over 100 attended, including members of the New York City council.

In attendance was city councilman or Robert Cornegy Jr, who represents Bedford Stuyvesant and northern Crown Heights in Brooklyn, and serves as secretary of the city council’s Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus. “Last night was pretty special because you see a demographic of people who don’t necessarily have to put themselves out in that way,” he told the Guardian after the protest.

“This is the civil rights issue of our time. What I know about the civil rights movement is that [...] any modicum of success that was gained through those movements and through those actions were based on solidarity across racial lines, across socioeconomic lines. That’s when change happened.”

The protest joined members of New York diverse religious community. Protesters carrying giant hamsas with the names of police violence victims marched in step with those holding elaborate paper-mache lanterns aloft. Men with kippot followed the lead of women in hijabs.

“Seeing religious groups coming together sends a powerful message that this is something that affect all of us. And that we want to stand side by side together … to demand justice,” said Aslan Rahman, 23.

Led by a phalanx of protesters carrying a sign that declared “Jews and Arabs say: Black Lives Matter” and tiki torches (left unlit in the rain) to form a giant menorah, the march travelled from Brooklyn’s Barclays Center — which has been no stranger to protests against police tactics in recent weeks — to the nearby headquarters of the NYPD’s 78th precinct.

The group of protesters formed a close circle, and used the “People’s Mic” — a call and repeat tactic used by Occupy Wall Street — to address the nearly two dozen officers standing guard at the precinct’s doors.

“We dedicate ourselves as Jews and Muslims, as Arabs and Asians, Latinos and African Americans, to building an alliance that will light our way and let us say: black lives matter!” said 29-year-old Cris Hilo, an Arab American Association of New York member who led most of the speeches. Another protester shouted, even louder: “Together we celebrate the miracle of resistance that we will not let die!”

Hilo read the names of people who had been killed by police: Malcolm Ferguson, Shantel Davis, Amadou Diallo, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Margaret Laverne Mitchell and more. After the names were read, the crowd solemnly uttered together: “May their memories be for a blessing,” a Jewish honorific that is written or said after the name of a deceased individual.

While the protest was decidedly peaceful — unlike a 4 December protest, at which four prominent New York rabbis were arrested during a sit-in on New York’s Upper West Side, there were no clashes with police — some demonstrators did get passionate.

At one point, Daniel Majesty Sanchez, a coordinator for the Justice Committee in the Bronx, directly addressed the black police officers standing watch over the demonstration. “Your silence is consent to the murder of your own people!” he declared, as the cops stood stony-faced.

“It wasn’t that long ago that Jews were subjected to state violence and abusive policing,” said Sara Gold, a representative of JFREJ. She said her grandfather’s experience as a Holocaust survivor had inspired her to become more active in the wave of protests that followed the Ferguson and Eric Garner grand jury decisions.



“I know what he went through and how he was targeted just because of who he is, and not because of anything he did. As a Jewish person, I have a responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen again. To anyone.”