Wandering Arameans
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“My father was a wandering Aramean.” The Jewish community must be on the side of the refugees because it is our moral, legal, and historical mitzvah to fulfill. We all know the story of the St. Louis, the doomed ship carrying over 900 German Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany in May of 1939. It was a time of strict immigration quotas, a time when many Americans viewed Jewish refugees with suspicion, as potential foreign agents capable of attacking the American way of life; most did not want to welcome Jewish refugees. The combination of security and economic concerns, veiled and unveiled bigotry, all served to curb the immigration numbers precisely at the moment when they needed to be loosened up. At the infamous Evian Conference, where thirty-two nations convened to discuss the plight of world Jewry, euphemistically dubbed the “refugee problem,” the delegates met for nine days, their declarations of sympathy intermingled with excuses as to why the strangling quotas must remain. As the Australian delegate stated, “We don’t have a racial problem and we don’t want to import one.” No country save the Dominican Republic offered to receive more Jews. Even Palestine, due to the British White paper of 1939, was effectively shut off from immigration. As David Ben Gurion would rail in the years to come, “What have you done to us, you freedom-loving peoples, guardians of justice, defenders of the high principles of democracy and the brotherhood of man? Why do you profane our pain and empty wrath with empty expressions of sympathy which ring like a mockery in the ears of millions of the damned in the torture houses of Nazi Europe?!” Then it was the Jews, now it is the Syrians. The weight of Jewish history demands that we not sit idly by.
There are many reasons why the American Jewish community should come out forcefully on behalf of the refugees. We should do so because we are not only Jews, but Americans – a nation of immigrants, the wretched refuse of the world. To turn our backs on refugees contradicts our political fiber, our standing order for all those huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We should do so because to refuse the refugees will validate the actions of our enemies, no differently than the refusals of the Evian delegates to provide refuge only served to bolster Hitler’s murderous intentions once he saw a world uncaring to the Jews. We should accept the refugees because, while nothing is foolproof, it is actually really, really difficult to achieve refugee status in the States. As the new head of the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt, recently wrote, there is already a high vetting process for any person seeking to be a refugee – a combination of background checks, fingerprints, photographs, and interviews – far more rigorous than what is required to be here on a student visa. We should welcome refugees because to do so shows the world that it is not either/or but both/and; we can hold multiple narratives at one and the same time. We can take the fight to ISIS and be compassionate at home. We can offer assistance to those suffering in a war torn region and protect those fleeing that very region. To repackage the words of Ben Gurion: We must fight ISIS as if there is no refugee crisis and we must welcome the refugees as if there is no ISIS. Finally, American Jewry should advocate for the refugees because to do so is to perform moral jujitsu on the world at large. A few weeks ago, on our congregational trip to Poland and Germany, it gave me a feeling like no other to volunteer, yarmulke in plain sight, at a Syrian refugee center in Berlin. What a yummy feeling it was to watch those present try to figure out why a Jew would help Arab refugees.
Jews should be a forceful voice for the refugees because to do so is a sanctification of God’s name, to do so shames those enemies of Israel who sit idly by as their Arab brethren suffer, and because to do so might just prompt the world to work together to address the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Perhaps most simply, we should do so because we should always strive to be on the right side of history, and I for one am hardpressed to think of a time when the judgment of history has looked kindly on the decision of a country to refuse refugees. Are there reasons not to accept refugees? Undoubtedly there are. But as Jews, as American Jews, there is nothing wrong, in fact there is everything right with taking a principled stand – popular or not – and then taking action together as a community.
Born in Poland, leader of the militant Irgun, and founder of the Likud Party, Israel’s sixth Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was the last person anyone would characterize as a bleeding heart liberal. Which is why it is all the more remarkable that his first act as Prime Minister in 1977 was offering asylum and resettlement to Vietnamese boat people. When asked by President Carter what prompted him to do so, Begin explained “We never have forgotten the boat with 900 Jews [the St. Louis], having left Germany in the last weeks before the Second World War…traveling from harbor to harbor, from country to country, crying out for refuge. They were refused…Therefore it was natural…to give those people a haven…”
“My father was a wandering Aramean.” To be a Jew is to remember our own wanderings and apply those lessons to our present. To be a Jew is to know that our parochial loyalties not only do not stand in conflict with our responsibilities to our common humanity, but actually serve to inform those obligations. To be an American Jew is to stand heir to the two greatest immigrant traditions on record. May we live up to the mission of our dual heritage, respond to the cry of Syrian refugees and heed the call of this desperate hour.