Star Tribune
Minnesotans gather to show support for Israel, Palestinians
In the aftermath of attacks in southern Israel and retaliatory airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, two Twin Cities gatherings expressing divergent responses took place Tuesday evening. One, at a synagogue, underscored Israel’s defense of its people as the other demanded an end to continued occupation of Palestinian territory.
Seated in the middle of some 1,700 people who’d gathered at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park, Michel Rouache tried to make sense of the unimaginable. He lived in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv before coming to the U.S. some 30 years ago.
“It’s something that you’ve never experienced in your life,” Rouache said. “That something like this can happen.”
The gathering, billed as “Solidarity for Israel,” called for Minnesotans to “stand together” in remembering Israelis killed over the weekend in surprise, pre-dawn attacks by members of Hamas, a political organization that rules Gaza and is deemed a terrorist group by the State Department.
Amid prayers for those killed and still in captivity, songs of mourning and words of support from politicians of both major parties, those gathered on Tuesday — some with flags of Israel draped around their shoulders — spoke to the weekend’s attacks in southern Israel with a sense of sorrow, reflection and also determination to support the Middle Eastern country with close ties to the U.S. in its campaign to defend itself against Hamas.
“It’s sobering, it’s somber, but it’s the truth,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, “Saturday was the single largest loss of life for Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke about how her staff worked with the State Department to learn the fate of a man who had joint U.S. and Israeli citizenship and lived in Minnesota, only to discover he’d been shot in his car by gunmen.
“The strength of the Israeli people stands in stark contrast to the acts of terrorism and cowardice that we saw over the weekend,” Klobuchar said. “I tell you now the Israeli spirit will not be broken.”
Gov. Tim Walz, DFL, noting that many gathered at Beth El on Tuesday night have loved ones and friends living in Israel, said there was “not an inch of space” between the politicians seated in the front two rows about the next steps Israel should take to defend its people.
“If you do not find moral clarity about what was seen Saturday morning,” Walz said, “you need to re-evaluate where you’re at.”
“That’s not a geopolitical discussion,” he added. “That’s murder.”
Five miles to the east, more than 80 people gathered in a lot next to the Midtown Global Market to hold a shiva, or Jewish mourning ritual, to grieve for Israeli and Palestinian lives lost and pray for justice and an end to “Israeli apartheid and occupation.” Attendees at the event, sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace-Twin Cities and IfNotNow Twin Cities, held signs saying, “Our motto is life” and “Violence is inevitable in settler colonialism.”
The Beth El Synagogue event “is about Jews standing first and foremost and only for Israel,” Or Levinson, who with a group of Jewish friends organized the event, told mourners. “And it felt extremely important to us to provide as visible of a counternarrative as we possibly can. … It is so important for us to gather in a way that shows the world and shows those who would co-opt our grief and co-opt our fear that Zionism does not stand for Judaism.”
Rabbi Jessica Rosenberg, another organizer, said she wanted to create a space for many Jewish people who are critical of Israel’s past, along with its plans for retaliating against Gaza for the Hamas attack.
“That is not what we think brings justice and peace,” Rosenberg said.
A series of mourners shared the grief they held. For their friends and kin who died. For all those without electricity, medical care and water. For a childhood Hebrew teacher still missing. For the grandfather who would not speak of the friends he lost.
In the middle of their circle, the group lit candles to honor the 1,900 dead, surrounding a basket of stones in a nod to the Jewish custom of placing stones on graves. A woman played a mournful melody on the violin as the group walked slowly in a loop beneath the darkening sky. Then they sang and prayed the Mourner’s Kaddish praising God.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
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