300+ Arrested Outside Schumer's Home During Jewish-Led Seder Against Gaza Genocide

As U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer prepared to vote on Tuesday night for a foreign aid package including billions to continue arming Israel in its bombardment of Gaza, roughly 300 protesters were arrested outside his home in Brooklyn for holding an "emergency Passover seder" protest, demanding the U.S. end its support for an assault that has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians.

The protest was led by anti-Zionist Jewish organizers with Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, with a large round banner representing a traditional Seder plate at the center of the protest at Grand Army Plaza, a block from Schumer's home.

Hundreds of people, some wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyehs, linked arms and chanted, "Free, free Palestine!" while blocking traffic and displaying the Seder plate.

"No one is free until everyone is free," read the banner. "Jews say stop arming Israel."

Schumer's home has been the site of numerous protests since October, when Israel began its attacks on and blockade of Gaza, which have left parts of the enclave facing famine and the entire population of 2.3 million people suffering from "acute food insecurity," at a minimum.

"A genocide being carried out in our names as Jews demands that we adapt our sacred tradition again, take to the streets, and do everything we can to prevent more death," author and activist Naomi Klein said at the protest.

The Biden administration has approved numerous weapons transfers to Israel, and the Senate overwhelmingly voted Tuesday night in favor of the package that includes $17 billion more in unconditional aid for the Israel Defense Forces.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) were the only members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the funding bill. Fifteen Republicans also opposed the bill over its inclusion of Ukraine aid.

The demonstration at Grand Army Plaza was organized amid a burgeoning protest movement on U.S. college campuses, including at Columbia University, where more than 100 students were suspended and then arrested for trespassing last week after setting up an encampment to demand the school divest from all companies that work with the Israeli government.

The student-led protests have been denounced by President Joe Biden and other pro-Israel critics as "antisemitic" and endangering Jewish students, despite the fact that Jewish students have helped to organize the nonviolent demonstrations.

One organizer, Calvin Harrison, told The New York Times that he attended the Brooklyn protest Tuesday night "because I'm a Jew and I was raised to believe that Judaism is about justice."

"Passover is a celebration of liberation for the future," he told the Times. "We can't celebrate liberation for ourselves while we're oppressing Palestinians."

Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, recalled the group's Liberation Seder in 2016 in New York, where campaigners protested the Anti-Defamation League's support for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

"Eighteen of us were arrested," he said. "Tonight: [Organizers] led a Seder in the streets demanding Schumer stop arming Israel. Hundreds are being arrested. The movement grows."