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<\/p>\nNEW YORK (RNS) \u2014 Hundreds gathered at Central Park\u2019s Columbus Circle entrance on Saturday morning (March 28) for an interfaith vigil ahead of New York City\u2019s \u201cNo Kings\u201d march to protest the Trump administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rev. Paul Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance, kicked off the event by noting the importance of faith communities taking a place within the \u201cNo Kings\u201d movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cFaithful people from all different backgrounds have to show up for \u2018No Kings\u2019 because authoritarians and would-be kings \u2026 their main pillar is often religious folks who want to prop up autocracy so they have proximity to power and impose their idea on what faith is on all the rest of us,\u201d he told the crowd gathered in front of the USS Maine National Monument.<\/p>\n
In his hands, Raushenbush held a sign that read \u201cYes to religious freedom for all\u201d and \u201cChristian Nationalism\u201d crossed out.<\/p>\n
Saturday was the third edition of the No Kings rally and drew millions across the country, and in Europe, for protests in more than 3,500 cities, including Washington, Miami, San Francisco and in Europe.<\/p>\n
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Protestors from an interfaith vigil carry homemade palm leaves as they join the larger No Kings march in Manhattan, NY, on Saturday, March 28, 2026. (Fiona Andr\u00e9\/RNS)<\/p>\n
The marches, first held in June and again in October, denounce what protestors see as executive overreach. \u201cTrump wants to rule over us as a tyrant. But this is America, and power belongs to the people \u2014 not to wannabe kings or their billionaire cronies,\u201d reads the movement\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s flagship rally was held in St. Paul, Minn., where Alex Pretti and Ren\u00e9e Good were fatally shot in January by federal agents deployed in the state as part of U.S. Immigration Enforcement\u2019s \u201cMetro surge\u201d operation.<\/p>\n
Minnesota clergy who had led widespread efforts to counter ICE in the Twin Cities spoke at the rally. Rev. JaNa\u00e9 Bates, co-director of the interfaith group ISAIAH, said many people of faith believed the Trump administration\u2019s policies clash with their faith principles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are direct affronts to the faith that we profess and what Christ calls us to do,\u201d Bates told Religion News Service before the rally. She was joined at the rally by Rabbi Arielle Lekach-Rosenberg of congregation Shir Tikvah and Imam Makram El-Amin, a member of the Minneapolis downtown clergy.<\/p>\n
The New York vigil was coordinated by organizers of \u201cMultifaith Mondays,\u201d a weekly pro-democracy prayer vigil held since last March, and Interfaith Alliance, a religious freedom advocacy group.<\/p>\n
As Jewish communities prepare for Passover this week and Christians for Holy Week, speakers connected the vigil to the two religious holidays.<\/p>\n
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Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum speaks at an interfaith vigil ahead of the third edition of the \u201cNo Kings\u201d rally on March 28, 2026. (Fiona Andr\u00e9\/ RNS).<\/p>\n
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, senior rabbi emerita at congregation Beit Simchat Torah, drew parallels between Pharaoh\u2019s rule and President Trump\u2019s governance. Passover, which starts\u00a0 April 1, commemorates the Exodus story of the Jewish people, led by Moses, fleeing Egypt through God\u2019s help.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we the Israelites yearning for freedom, or are we Pharaoh?\u201d she asked the crowd. \u201cIn a place in which Pharaoh dominates the news. It is on us to remember Pharaoh does not win in the end, we all must be Moses organizing our own small worlds, our own small communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some attendees also waved makeshift Palm leaves, made of green foam pool noodles pierced with green sticks, to commemorate Palm Sunday (March 29), which marks the start of Holy Week \u2013 the final stretch of the Lenten season culminating in Easter Sunday. The Palm Sunday tradition echoes the story of Jesus\u2019 triumphal return to Jerusalem as the faithful waved palm leaves along his path.<\/p>\n
Laura Miraz, a member of Riverside Church who helped craft the dozens of palm leaves, said she waved them as a symbol of unity during the vigil.<\/p>\n
\u201cWaving the palms today is a celebration of the people of God who are coming together \u2014 people of all faiths and beliefs \u2014 to stand up for one thing, and that is democracy for the liberty of all people, regardless of gender, documentation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The crowd chanted songs that have become staples of progressive religious activist groups over the past year, including \u201cWe will protect each other.\u201d The song was taught to religious activists at a \u201cSinging Resistance\u201d event in March at Riverside Church.<\/p>\n
The vigil also featured a Sikh prayer from Gurvir Singh Sidhu, a state policy manager with the Sikh Coalition, and a Buddhist reflection shared by Sarah D\u014djin Emerson, a Zen priest with the Brooklyn Zen Center.<\/p>\n
At the corner of 66th Street and Central Park, a small group of Jewish activists observed a special Shabbat service ahead of the rally. The period of rest, which stretches from Friday at sunset to Saturday at sunset and can include restrictions on travel and electronics, makes it difficult for some Jews to join protests.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been going to rallies for a long time, and one of the things that some of us have started thinking about is, how could we bring in some of the Shabbat spirit and let it infuse our experience of \u2018No Kings,\u2019\u201d said 71-year-old Shifra Bronznick, a member of \u201cJews for freedom,\u201d who helped coordinate the service.<\/p>\n
Leaders of the vigil insisted on the importance of sustaining the momentum built over the last year among the city\u2019s religious activists beyond the \u201cNo Kings\u201d march.<\/p>\n
Rev. Adriene Thorne, senior minister at Riverside Church, noted the importance of faith communities getting engaged at a hyper-local level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen things calm down in the city and in the nation, faith leaders can get very focused on the things that are happening in their particular communities,\u201d she said after the vigil.<\/p>\n
Raushenbush said Interfaith Alliance will host a national town hall on Tuesday (March 31) to advise faith groups on ways to get involved in resisting ICE operations and in the 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the springboard for the next thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (RNS) \u2014 Hundreds gathered at Central Park\u2019s Columbus Circle entrance on Saturday morning (March 28) for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[50229,2035,72164,5800,9,56,63,65,64,44544,72165],"class_list":["post-178539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-alex-pretti","tag-ice","tag-interfaith-alliance","tag-minnesota","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-renee-good","tag-riverside-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}