Eugene learns songs from Minneapolis

Presenter: KEPW’s Todd Boyle was at the Federal Building Feb. 3, as a crowd of singing protesters learned songs from Minneapolis. Rabbi Ruhi’s mom, Rabbi Linda Motzkin:

Rabbi Linda Motzkin: I’m Rabbi Linda Motzkin. This is Rabbi Jonathan Rubenstein. We’re known best in this community as the parents of Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Moskin Rubenstein, and we moved here in September from our—we retired from our congregation in upstate New York.

And we were, along with Ruhi, among clergy people from all over the country that received a call to come to Minneapolis. And we showed up and we took part in a bunch of different actions. 

Before we shared some of our takeaways, I think it’s really important that we sing together, and I’m going to invite Ruhi to come with me up here because she’s better than I am, although I’m okay at singing, but she’s great. Come here.

Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein: This song is called ‘Walk with You’ by Cantor Jessi Roemer and it’s got a call and response part, so it goes like this:

When you walk through the waters, I’ll walk with you (I’ll walk with you). When you walk through the waters, I’ll walk with you. (I’ll walk with you.) Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid. (Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.) I’ll walk with you. (I’ll walk with you)…

So, there’s a songwriting collective in Minneapolis and this song that I want to teach you, but I want to say first, you know, what I think it’s about. 

We have an administration that thinks that some people are inherently some way, right? You know, depending on where you’re from or what your gender is, your inherently—or what your skin color is, or what language you speak, that means you’re inherently some way.

And as a religious Jewish person, I believe that every human being is inherently full of possibility to do great good (or great harm), and until the very last day, full of possibility to change our minds, to do teshuva: to repent, to repair, to choose a different path. So this song is from the collective in Minneapolis as a love song to the ICE officers, and an invitation to change their minds. So we will sing it a couple times, and you can sing along as you learn it. Some of you heard it already. 

(singing) Oh, it’s okay to change your mind. Show us your courage, leave this behind. It is okay to change your mind, and you can join us. You can join us. Join us here anytime. That’s the whole song. Oh, it is okay to change your mind…

Tim Lewis: Hey. Hello everybody. (Hey Tim.) My name is Tim Lewis and I’ve done a lot of videos around this issue and it’s always awesome to see everybody come out like this. But I would just like to give a message also to everybody here that the governor, the mayor, the police chief, and everybody are trying to divide our community.

Todd Boyle: That’s right. 

Tim Lewis: Whether it’s from, you know, what you’re doing here or the youth getting enraged and wearing black bloc and trying to defend themselves from the police. It’s happened in the past and they try to get liberals (or whatever we want to call ourselves) separated from a radical element. And the radical element, as we all know is ICE and the federal government at this time.

Let’s stick together. Let’s think about that and don’t judge some of the youth that are doing in a rage and have the energy to do what they’re doing and hopefully they don’t get caught. Just remember that. Thanks.

Crowd singing: …(I’ll stand with you.) I’ll walk with you. (I’ll walk with you.)

Rabbi Linda Motzkin: I’m gonna be brief ’cause it’s hard to hear. Main takeaways: …We all need to come together. We need to overcome the divisions that we often have among one another to be able to work together in love, because love is the only thing that’s going to counter hate.

We have to work together in nonviolence, because they can muster a lot of violence and we can’t counter that violence with more violence ’cause we’ll lose. We have to counter it with the nonviolent loving spirit that we can muster.

And we have to look out for our neighbors, ’cause a lot of the work that we were doing when we were in Minneapolis was focused in two areas.

One was direct actions that were nonviolent, targeted against corporations that are aiding and abetting ICE. Among them Target, among them Delta Airlines, among them Home Depot, among them Enterprise Auto. There are lists you can find online of national corporations that are allowing ICE to come into their private property to seize their employees, to use, ICE, as, their parking lots as staging grounds.

Corporations are called upon to be ‘Fourth Amendment corporations.’ That means to stand up against illegal search and seizure.

And the second set of actions were actions of love and care for our neighbors, whether that is being out in the streets blowing those whistles when you see ICE coming, whether that is showing up bringing groceries to the food pantries and delivery stations organizing meals. 

We were part of a effort at Dios Habla Hoy Church that is providing meals, home delivery boxes of groceries, to 1,500 families that are afraid to leave their homes. They’re collecting donations to pay rent for people who can’t go to work.

If you’re asked to contribute financially, if you’re asked to contribute groceries, if you’re asked to show up and be on the street, there are many different ways that you can help that are loving, that are nonviolent, and all of them are important and all of them are called upon for each of us to do what we’re able to do right now. (Amen.)

So I want to end this with how we started it, with our song. When you walk through the water, I’ll walk with you. (I’ll walk with you.) When you walk through the water. I’ll walk with you….Thank you.

Presenter: Nonviolent protesters gather every Tuesday at the federal building in downtown Eugene, and on Feb. 3, KEPW’s Todd Boyle was there. You can see the entire recording on Todd’s YouTube Channel.