The Few, The Proud: Jews Stand With Standing Rock

On the Thursday before Election Day, Rabbi Francine Roston took a break from phone banking for Hillary Clinton to drive, solo, from her home in northern Montana to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota — an 800 mile trip that took her 18 hours to complete.

She went to join clergy from across the country who were going to protest construction of the 1,200-mile Dakota Access Pipeline across Native American burial and prayer sites, threatening culturally significant artifacts as well as the Sioux Tribe’s drinking water. On Oct. 27, police and protestors had a standoff, ending with police using pepper spray, loud sirens and bean-bag bullets to break up the protest. Roughly 120 people were arrested. Soon after a diverse coalition of clergy planned a day of action in which clergy would stand alongside the Sioux tribe.

“After the incidents on Thurs Oct 27, I really felt compelled to be there,” Rabbi Roston told the Jewish Week in a telephone interview just hours after she returned from the protest.

This week, the protestors had a moment of light after weeks of darkness after the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not resume pipeline construction until more analysis and discussion with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe took place. The announcement was due in part to the strong outcry from the protestors, including the clergy day of action.

On that day, Nov. 3, more than 500 clergy members from a diverse mix of religious backgrounds gathered at the site including just a handful of Jews: a rabbi and two rabbinical students from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical as well as a few members of Jewish Voice for Peace.

But Rabi Roston thinks if the protests continue, the Jewish presence will grow, because standing up for minority rights and to protect the environment are so clearly Jewish issues.

“This is a human rights issue,” she said. “To say these people are being treated unfairly is such an understatement,” she continued. “The police are denying them their right to protest, the government is not fulfilling its duty to honor its contracts with the Sioux Nation, and every day, every hour of every day, the [oil pipeline] company is continuing to build this pipeline. … They are destroying sacred sites on sacred land,” she said, comparing the situation to one in which “someone tried to build a pipeline through Arlington National Cemetery.”

T’ruah executive director Rabbi Jill Jacobs said in a telephone interview that although only a few members of her organization were able to make it to last week’s protest, about 30 rabbis expressed interest in taking further action on the issue. “As Jews the idea of someone violating a sacred burial ground — it’s just hard because we’ve had our own cemeteries desecrated so often,” she said.

Other Jewish groups have also taken stands against the pipeline including the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis and a coalition of some 200 rabbis from across the denominational spectrum who signed a statement last week. In Philadelphia, nine rabbis organized by Jewish Voice for Peace were arrested Wednesday as part of a demonstration there supporting the Standing Rock protest.

When the coalition of priests, ministers, imams, nuns and other religious leaders made their way past the husks of burnt cars to the where the Oct. 27 stand-off took place, Rabbi Roston saw more than 20 armed police officers at the way. “I thought, ‘Really, what did they think the clergy was going to do?’” she said.

“We formed a circle of 524 clergy, shoulder to shoulder as representatives from various religious groups performed symbolic rituals. Rabbi Roston joined up with representatives from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Linda Holtzman, Miriam Levia Grossman and Ariana Katz who chanted the Torah portion on the third day of creation, which focuses on the creation of water, and then Rabbi Roston blew her shofar.

“I brought my shofar because it’s the sound of revelation and the sound of repentance,” she said, “and I thought a call to atonement was appropriate.”