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Who needs a Reichstag fire when you can just pretend Portland’s burning?
Here in Portland, this supposed city of darkness, happy kids splash around in a fountain next to the sparkling Willamette River, senior citizens practice tai chi in a park, bald eagles and ospreys soar past office building windows, chefs and bakers win national awards, world-class jazz musicians draw locals into clubs, and hiking trails course through the largest urban forest in the country, with glacier-draped Mount Hood as a backdrop.
It’s hardly the hellscape depicted by Donald Trump. What the city is, however, is a primary target in Trump’s scheming to militarize American cities — at least progressive ones like Portland, my home for the past 25 years.
Demonstrations have continued outside an ICE facility in Portland since the summer. The protests have been small, overall peaceful, occasionally tense, but often cheery — such as the time when a group of elderly Portlanders sang “This Land Is Your Land.” But Trump is using the protests as an excuse to launch what local officials and residents fear could be a major military intervention in the city, turning Portland, in essence, into a domestic battleground.
Trump is employing a playbook that’s eerily similar to ones that have been used by despots, including Adolf Hitler, who consolidated his control over Germany by deploying Sturmabteilung shock troops to spread fear across the populace.
Trump has effectively weaponized ICE as his own personal police force, and is using it to bait protestors into clashes and create a pretext for exerting military-style control over cities led by Democrats. From the very beginning of Trump’s second term, federal agents’ pursuit of undocumented immigrants has been marked by the spread of fear and terror. Trump says ICE’s heavy-handed tactics are necessary to fulfill his promise that undocumented immigrants “will not be tolerated.” But the scale and spectacle of ICE actions suggest another motive: to manufacture war-like images that justify crackdowns on leftists, whom Trump routinely portrays as domestic terrorists.
So far, no ICE raid has been more chilling than its assault last week on a five-story apartment building in Chicago. In the dead of night, armed federal agents rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters onto the roof. Others stormed the building from the ground, kicking down doors, throwing flash-bang grenades, and zip-tying screaming children and elderly residents. The target of the raid was a Venezuelan gang. But Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said many of those who were arrested were U.S. citizens with no criminal record — which has been disputed by the Trump administration.
Two weeks earlier, a pastor praying outside a Chicago ICE processing center was struck in the head by a pepper ball fired from a roof and then sprayed with tear gas as he lay on the ground. He has since sued ICE, alleging violations of religious freedom and free speech.
After weeks of threats, Trump has federalized 300 Illinois National Guard troops and ordered hundreds more to deploy from Texas — using protests against immigrant detention as a pretext for putting soldiers on the streets. The move defies the spirit of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the use of federal military forces to enforce civilian law without explicit congressional authorization.
At a press conference, Pritzker voiced angry defiance toward what he called “Trump’s invasion.”
“The state of Illinois is going to use every lever at our disposal to resist this power grab and get (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem’s thugs the hell out of Chicago,” Pritzker said.
Portland might well be next.
Over the weekend, a federal judge in Oregon, appointed by Trump in 2019, issued two rulings temporarily blocking his attempts to deploy National Guard troops to Portland. In a blistering decision Saturday, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut wrote that Trump’s claims of a “war zone” were “simply untethered to the facts.” She added: “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
When Trump tried to circumvent her ruling by ordering California National Guard troops into Oregon, Immergut blocked that maneuver too, writing: “The executive cannot invoke emergency powers based on manufactured chaos.”
Trump responded by claiming that “Portland is on fire,” and threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which legal experts note would effectively amount to imposing martial law.
Trump’s description of the situation in Portland is grossly exaggerated, and intentionally so. The protests have occurred in a very small area around the ICE detention center. There have been clashes involving pepper spray, but no ongoing battles. The scene is actually more like an episode of the TV show Portlandia. During Kristi Noem’s visit to the facility on Tuesday she was mocked by activists wearing inflatable animal costumes, including a dinosaur, a raccoon and a chicken. An activist in a giant toad costume has become a social media sensation, especially after an ICE agent shot pepper spray into the air vent on the costume’s back side. Another image making the social media rounds shows protestors using donuts dangling from fishing poles to taunt ICE agents — “ICE fishing,” as they call it.
Portland wears its progressivism on its sleeve, which does not always work in the city’s favor. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests downtown, city officials faced accusations of being too lenient on leftist agitators. Riots during those protests, coupled with COVID, led to the closure of numerous downtown stores. Leftists who relish confrontation with right-wing counter-protesters have posed another challenge. During one protest in late August 2020, Trump supporters rode their pickup trucks into downtown Portland and picked a fight with leftist demonstrators. That night, a right-wing counter-protester was shot and killed by a self-described anti-fascist activist, who was later tracked down and fatally shot by federal agents in neighboring Washington state. Before fleeing, the shooter said he was defending himself.
Even before Trump, Portland has had a rocky relationship with federal authority. The city was the site of massive protests against President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2019, Portland became the second U.S. city — after San Francisco — to withdraw its police officers from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, citing concerns over civil liberties and lack of transparency. In the 1990s, staffers for the first President Bush dubbed Portland “Little Beirut” in response to raucous anti-war protests that greeted his visits.
During his visit to Quantico Marine Base, Trump told top military commanders, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” He singled out Chicago, Portland, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. For now, Portland’s resistance may resemble a surreal episode of protest theater—complete with inflatable dinosaurs and the viral “anti-fascist” frog. But there will be no cause for chuckling if the city becomes a proving ground for martial law, with federal troops rehearsing the suppression of dissent.
The post Who needs a Reichstag fire when you can just pretend Portland’s burning? appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention appeared first on The Forward.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song
(JTA) — Boy George has withdrawn from his run as King Herod in London’s West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” days before he was due to take the stage and 24 hours after releasing “We Will Dance Again,” dedicated to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the Nova music festival in Israel.
The 80’s pop star was scheduled to appear at London’s Palladium starting Monday as part of the production’s rotating cast playing King Herod, the Judean king who is best known by Jews for his expansion of the Second Temple and to Christians for his efforts to stave off the arrival of a challenger — the story of which is reflected in the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice.
Boy George will be replaced by actor Richard Armitage in the London production.
In announcing the cast change, Paul Kelmsley, the singer’s manager, did not directly mention the blowback the former Culture Club frontman was receiving for releasing a pro-Israel song but alluded to it.
“George has never been afraid to stand by his personal convictions, and I have always respected him for that,” he said. ”In this instance, I felt it was right to step aside, allowing the production to remain the focus, while ensuring everyone involved can move forward with mutual respect and goodwill.”
Boy George is defending his decision to release the song, saying he believes artists should be free to express their views even when they are unpopular. In “We Will Dance Again,” the singer rejects claims of genocide against Israel and proclaims, “If you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews.”
Earlier Friday, Boy George lashed back at the vitriol he was getting online. “What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me, ” he posted on X. “If you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f—_ a garage,’” he said, referring to a quote attributed to the taboo-breaking transgender artist.
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers, not just the Jewish community,” Boy George said. “When will you wake up?”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Boy George cedes role of King Herod in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ production after releasing pro-Israel song appeared first on The Forward.
