(RNS) — Opposition to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign has brought thousands of people into the streets of U.S. cities. Among them are the growing ranks of clergy who have wanted to do more than preach from the pulpit about the political forces they say are violating their most sacred values.

About 140 of those clergy — rabbis in particular — are converging on Washington, D.C., beginning Monday (Feb. 9), for a three-day National Jewish Clergy Convening hosted by T’ruah, the progressive Jewish human rights organization. The convening is intended to train rabbis to organize, strategize and, if needed, put their bodies on the line in defense of their values.

“This is about how moral leaders can stand up to protect democracy and to protect our neighbors,” said T’ruah CEO Rabbi Jill Jacobs. “That includes, of course, standing up to ICE and standing up to protect immigrant neighbors on the street, but it also includes how to take actions to protect democracy.”

The U.S. Jewish community’s response to the federal immigration crackdown has been building gradually. Immigration is a core piece of the Jewish experience in the U.S., and one that unites many rabbis at a time when Israel’s actions in Gaza tend to divide them.

While strategizing in response to the mass deportation agenda will be a central focus for the T’ruah convening, Jacobs said the overall theme is how to fight for democracy in the face of growing authoritarianism — in the U.S., but also across the world, including in Israel. T’ruah held a similar convening in 2017, and last year held a series of local events.

The convening will train rabbis on practical tools for non-violent resistance — both to disrupt systems with tactics such as boycotts and strikes, and also to create alternative processes to help vulnerable populations under threat by providing them with food, transportation and other needs.

“Protests alone are not enough to stop authoritarians from taking over governments,” said the Rev. Scott Bostic, a United Methodist minister and organizer with the group Free DC, a campaign to protect the city’s home rule from federal takeover.

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Bostic will lead several training sessions, teaching the rabbis how to prepare for and respond to federal immigration raids in their cities, a practice known as “noncooperation.”

“A lot of what we’ve been doing has been in reaction mode,” Bostic said. “What are some things that people can start doing to repair and to help? That mostly just starts with good, basic organizing, knowing your neighbors, knowing what your resources are and not waiting until a crisis to come together.”

Noelle Damico, director of social justice at The Workers Circle, a national Jewish social justice organization, will train the rabbis on two of her organization’s programs. The first, Talk to Your Sheriff, encourages leaders, such as clergy, to make appointments to meet with their sheriff to inquire about how they are cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, and to urge them to end any cooperation.

“Many sheriffs, frankly, are having second thoughts about the kind of violent and constitutionally troubling operations of ICE and Border Patrol,” Damico said. “They have the responsibility for protecting the safety of all of the people in their community.”

The other program, Freedom Vigils, encourages clergy to hold regular rituals outside detention centers, prisons or jails where immigrants are held to protest the administration’s detention and deportation agenda. The program began in August, a month after the opening of the notorious Florida Everglades detention facility referred to as “Alligator Alcatraz.” Since then, the weekly open-air vigils have continued and grown in size. In December, Amnesty International released a report documenting “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” at the facility.

“It’s a way to say to the broader immigrant community being terrorized by these policies, you are not alone,” Damico said. “We are standing with you. We are going to peacefully fight this together.”

This year’s convening will conclude Wednesday with a protest outside ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C. Fifty co-sponsoring Jewish organizations and synagogues will join the rabbis in calling for an end to what they call ICE’s mistreatment of immigrants and demanding respect for human rights. And parallel protests are planned in Boston and Minneapolis to protest ICE and its contract with the private charter airline, Signature Aviation, which provides detainee transport flights throughout the U.S.

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