In an effort to get a better picture of the lived experience of what’s been going on in the mMinneapolis region and how the Jewish community has responded, we spoke to our colleague Riv-Ellen Prell, Emerita Professor of American Studies at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Prell is not only a key figure in American Jewish Studies, but a witness to the tumultuous days of ICE assault. This month’s Documensch Conversation comes in the form of a reflection. —Eds.
Donald Trump falsely alleged in December of 2025 that Minnesota had failed to address widespread misuse of public funds because of its Democratic leadership. Since a handful of Somali-Americans were the perpetrators, Trump declared that all 90,000 Minnesota Somalis— immigrants, citizens and the native-born—were “garbage.” He responded with Operation Metro Surge, in which 3,000 ICE agents invaded the Twin Cities masked, heavily armed, spraying chemicals into cars and at legal demonstrators arrested and deported 4,000 people, often because they “looked” illegal.
Alliances between Twin Cities clergy, in the labor movement, among political progressives and within the Jewish community, which were shattered during the War in Gaza, were reconstituted in the face of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and ICE arrests.
The response from tens of thousands of us was immediate. Jewish Community Action provided me training on how to legally record arrests. Women in my neighborhood organized whistle distributions to warn people about the presence of ICE, and collect food, tampons, and clothing to deliver to those who were homebound because they risked arrest. These activities were replicated everywhere, blossoming into mutual aid societies throughout the area, including Jews and Jewish organizations.
Alliances between Twin Cities clergy, in the labor movement, among political progressives and within the Jewish community, which were shattered during the War in Gaza, were reconstituted in the face of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and ICE arrests. Those alliances translated into a resistance that included non-violent demonstrations that turned out tens of thousands of people on the coldest days.
I have taught and written about Jews in the social movements of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. I have, however, never experienced a non-violent and democratic movement like the one that has challenged ICE, which brings together strangers, colleagues and neighbors for mutual aid, for cultural activism, and for activism on streets to do whatever they can to resist tactics that come directly from the playbooks of slave patrols in the North and authoritarian states.
