To create a pre-recorded online service, Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann, center, and musicians and singers from Mishkan Chicago recorded the songs and prayers of the High Holidays in August 2020. (Courtesy of See3 Digital Events)

(JTA) — Over 100 rabbis and cantors in the Chicago area have signed a letter denouncing the Trump administration’s recent series of funding cuts and arrests on college campuses.

The letter joins a growing movement of American Jewish opposition to the Trump administration’s campus crackdown. The White House says the arrests and funding freezes are meant to fight antisemitism, and those moves have been welcomed by some Jewish groups and leaders.

But a range of others, including the signatories to the Chicago letter, say that the campaign does not make Jews safer and endangers civil liberties that they and others have long relied on.

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“Many of these actions have been presented as in defense of the Jewish community. Yet in truth, Jewish fear is being used as a fig leaf for an anti-democratic agenda of mass deportations, civil rights rollbacks, and attacks on higher education,” read the letter, which was published as an advertisement in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday.

It continued, “As Jewish leaders, we reject the exploitation of our fears and experiences of antisemitism to justify the dismantling of those institutions. Such actions do not protect our community — they use us, and they put us in danger.”

Signatories of the letter included current and former leaders of synagogues and Jewish organizations across the denominational spectrum.

Notable signatories included Josh Feigelson, the former campus rabbi at Northwestern; Lizzi Heydemann, the founder of Mishkan, a congregation in Chicago; Andrea London, the senior rabbi of Beth Emet; and Capers Funnye, the leader of the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation.

Since the beginning of March, campuses nationwide have faced funding freezes, including the Chicago-area Northwestern University. Last month saw a string of detainments of pro-Palestinian student protesters.

Most recently, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard University and demanded a bevy of policy changes over allegations of antisemitism. The university has rebuffed Trump and countered the cuts with a lawsuit.

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