“We’re not alone,” says Rachel Timoner. “We are surrounded by people who believe in an America for all of us. So let’s find the way from grief to action.”
Timoner, the rabbi of Beth Elohim Congregation, looks into the hall. More than a thousand people crowd in the Garfield Synagogue in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening to sit shiva together. This time, the Jewish mourning ceremony, which lasts seven days, is not for a person, but for an idea – their America.
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Because that died seven days earlier when Donald Trump was elected the next US president. “Since then, hundreds of people have come with us to cry,” says Timoner. “It feels like death.”
But the Park Slope District meeting – where Hillary Clinton won 91 percent of the vote – serves another purpose. Not only Jewish citizens followed Brad Lander’s call to the synagogue. But also blacks, Latinos and many others who are afraid of Trump – as well as activists, lawyers and civil rights activists. Goal: organize the resistance.
Resistance – on a large and small scale
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“Let’s roll up our sleeves,” says Lander. “Let us do everything we can to defend the things that are right. To protect those who cannot defend themselves. To stick together in concentrated resistance.”
One week after the election, Trump continues to meet bitter resistance. This is shown by the large-scale demonstrations across the country, but also by countless citizens’ assemblies and “Trump teach-ins” that are taking place these days on the northeast and west coasts, where people are comforting each other and joining forces on a new mission.
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Protest march on Fifth Avenue
Photo: Kevin Hagen / dpa
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And the capital of the resistance, the last great bastion of progressive America, is Trump’s hometown of all things – New York. Here Clinton got 79 percent: Two million New Yorkers voted for them, more than Barack Obama four years ago. Trump ended up far behind with 18 percent.
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New York defies the right-wing revolution and lives up to its name as a permissive, open-minded, cosmopolitan stronghold. “And for that we will fight to the last breath,” shouts City Councilor Lander to loud cheers.
The Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio made this clear right away. He said that he would “oppose” all of Trump’s actions that endanger the New Yorkers: “We will not stand idly by anything”.
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Mayor Bill de Blasio
Photo: Drew Angerer / AFP
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By this he means above all the threat to minorities and migrants from Trump’s law-and-order line. New York is a “Sanctuary City”, a protection zone for illegal immigrants like the one Trump wants to abolish. “We won’t tear families apart,” de Blasio vowed. “We will do everything we can to oppose this.”
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For de Blasio, it’s also about their own future
Since taking office in January 2014, his political star has fallen rapidly. A powerful appearance against Trump could secure him re-election next year.
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of the state of New York, is likely to have something similar. “Hate sentiments” such as racism, misogyny and xenophobia have no place here, he wrote in an open letter after the election. “That election was about the soul of America, and that’s why so many of us feel what we feel today: our soul hurts.”
The daily protest marches to the bunkered Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue also spoil Trump’s wealthy neighbors. “They can no longer move into their apartments so easily,” complained a real estate agent whose clients want to move out of the tower “New York Post”.
Other resident anger is manifesting itself on the Upper West Side. Trump had a housing estate built here in the 1990s, which he has since sold. Only his name is still bold on the facade. During the election campaign, the tenants started a petition to remove the lettering.
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