Why Refugee Protection Matters by Rabbi Asher Knight

I was recently in Dallas to attend a meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism. The meeting happened to be held at the hotel at the Dallas airport – in the very same terminal where the government was detaining 50 refugees who had received green cards and visas. I met a young man named Mohamed. He was from the Sudan and had come to the United States as a political dissident. His grandmother, a 77-year-old woman, named Shadya – was also a political dissident from Sudan – a country with a brutal dictatorship and regime that has committed Genocide in Darfur and South Sudan. Sudan was among the seven countries listed in the recent ban.

Mohamed was there to pick up his grandmother. And the government said “no.” She was a terrorist threat to our way of life. Talking with Mohamed made me think about our Jewish history.

The Perspective from our Jewish History

The first Jewish immigrants to North America came as refugees in 1654. These 23 Jewish men, women, and children fled from the former Dutch colony of Recife, Brazil after the Portuguese recaptured Brazil and re-introduced the Inquisition.  The Jewish experience with the Inquisition had been terrible:  persecution, forced conversion, torture, expulsion. These were reasons enough for the Jews to flee.

Their journey was not easy. While sailing toward Jamaica – their ship was overrun by a Spanish privateer who stripped the Jews of all their possessions. Homeless. Penniless. With nowhere to turn – the Jewish party landed in New Amsterdam – hoping that the Dutch Colony would be welcoming.

However, New Amsterdam’s governor, Peter Stuyvesant, made it clear that the Jews were not welcome.   Stuyvesant wrote a letter to the Dutch West India Company board – who oversaw the Dutch colony.  He requested permission to expel the Jews, saying:  “The Jews who have arrived would nearly all like to remain here, …., we have, for the benefit of this weak and newly developing place and the land in general, deemed it useful to require them to depart…. praying that the deceitful race—such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ—be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony.”

The Dutch West Indian Company responded on April 26, 1655 – 362 years ago. They ordered Stuyvesant to allow the Jews to remain in New Amsterdam.  And Despite Stuyvesant’s clear anti-Jewish sentiments, he ultimately complied. This set the stage for the building of Jewish communities in North America – a land that has been open to our people for 362 years.

Jews have a unique understanding and perspective of what it feels like to be refugees and resident aliens.   The memory of this pain is seared into our collective Jewish conscience.  From Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman persecutions – to exile and the diaspora – to the crusades and pogroms – to the inquisitions and expulsions, to the Holocaust – our people have experienced rejection and persecution and the need for safety and security.

Some argue that the Jewish experience in America has been completely different than other lands in which our people have lived. Look at what we have accomplished in this country. We have built Jewish and secular institutions. We participate freely in society. Jews are leaders in government and business.  We have equality, status, and professional careers, educations, and relative wealth.

Interestingly, a good indicator of acceptance is intermarriage. Countries that are not accepting of foreigners do not allow their children to marry foreigners. While we may be challenged by our rates of intermarriage and what it means for our people’s continuity, we can also be certain that our people’s rate of intermarriage in the United States – around 48% – is a sure sign of acceptance.

Lessons from our Sacred Texts

In the book of Numbers, we learn that Moses married a Cushite woman.  Cush was a kingdom near modern day Sudan. It was one of the earliest Black African Kingdoms. Moses not only married a foreigner – he married a black foreigner who probably had an accent.  Miriam and Aaron speak out against Moses, and God responds:  Va-yichar Ahf Adonai – “God was incensed.”  God was furious at Miriam and Aaron’s racism and xenophobia.  The Torah reminds us that fear of the stranger exists and that each of us – even our leaders – struggle with the commandment of treating the stranger, the immigrant, and the foreigner as the “home-born.”  They don’t look like us. They are different than we.  They are “other.”

As we continue to live the American dream, we must remember that the story of our people includes identifying with the experience of being a resident alien. We should, on some level, identify with those who have fled persecution and are seeking opportunity, safety and security. We should identify with those escaping from governments that are collapsing because of the drug trade, or lands immersed in Wars – some of the wars, we began.

We, who were trapped during the years of the Holocaust when there was no Jewish state to flee too, should understand what closed doors could mean.  We cannot forget that Israel has only existed for 69 years.  It has only been in the last 362 years, out of a more than three-thousand-year story of our people, that we have had a place where we have felt “at home” like we do here in North America.

Over 362 years later, Stuyvesant’s name is no longer negatively associated with Jews. Stuyvesant today is associated with Stuyvesant High School, which opened in 1904 in New York City. Noted for its high academic standards, Stuyvesant High School is consistently ranked among the best schools in America. The student body has historically been Jewish.

362 years ago – Governor Stuyvesant was wrong. The Jews were far from a burden. We came here; we settled here, we have prospered here. The story of persecution is ours. The story of exile is ours. The story of refugees and immigration – is ours. The story of prosperity is ours. Let us not turn our back on those who desire the benefits of freedom, safety, security, and opportunity. We can strive to live up to the words of our ancient tradition, “that when a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens, you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” And let us not forgot that as unique as the Jewish story is – the dream for equality, possibility, and opportunity are dreams shared by all.

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