S.D. Jews rally for refugees, immigrants

 

By Donald H. Harrison

LA JOLLA, California – Four rabbis, three heads of Jewish organizations, and two elected officials urged opposition to President Trump’s seven-nation travel ban at a standing room only rally of more than 500 Jewish community members and friends at Congregation Beth El on Thursday night.

Speakers included State Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego); San Diego City Councilwoman Barbara Bry; Rabbis Yael Ridberg of Congregation Dor Hadash, Avi Libman of Congregation Beth El; Nadav Caine of Ner Tamid Synagogue, and Scott Meltzer of Ohr Shalom Synagogue, and the following organizational leaders: Michael Hopkins of Jewish Family Service; Charlene Seidle of the Leichtag Family Foundation, and Tammy Gilles of the Anti-Defamation League.

Organized in just three days, the rally was a call to Jewish community members and friends to write and telephone members of Congress in opposition to the 90-day ban on immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and the 120-day ban on all refugees.

Gloria told the crowd, to cheers, that California is already officially fighting the ban, as SB54 works its way through the Legislature, declaring that ‘not one dime of state taxpayer money” will be spent for immigration enforcement, while another piece of legislation will help ensure immigrants facing deportation will have legal representation.

He said although President Trump has threatened to cut off federal funds to cities and states that provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, California is unwilling to “sell out our neighbors for a block grant.  Our values are not for sale!”

Michael Hopkins, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Service, said for nearly a century his agency has been “welcoming the stranger,” adding: “We resettle refugees from all over the world, not because they are Jewish but because we are Jewish.”

As of February 3^rd, he said, JFS will no longer be able to meet refugee families at Lindbergh Field; President Trump’s executive order has stopped in their tracks 129 people who previously had gone through the vetting process and were headed to new homes in San Diego County.

Among them, he said, are an Iraqi couple who have lived in a refugee camp for eight years, and other refugees who have been waiting an average of five years.

The process these refugees went through to get permission to come to the United States, now suspended, was rigorous, Hopkins said.

He noted that on the 66^th day of the 120-day period, “we will be sitting down at our Passover seders,” remembering when the Hebrew ancestors of the Jewish community were themselves refugees from the Egyptian pharaoh.

“Thirty six times in the Torah we are commanded to welcome the stranger,” Hopkins said.

Rabbi Ridberg opened the community meeting by chanting the words of Jewish poet Emma Lazarus that are  found at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

“It is up to us to respond to immigrants and refugees that we are with them,” declared Ridberg, who is spiritual leader of San Diego County’s only Reconstructionist Jewish congregation.

Councilwoman Barbara Bry, who is a member of Congregation Beth El, said immigrants and refugees have helped to build San Diego, providing knowledge capital to the city’s industries.

For example, she said, Andrew Viterbi, a co-founder of Qualcomm, was a refugees from World War II Italy; while Ivor Royston, a driving force in San Diego’s biotech industry, was the child of Jewish refugees who had fled from Nazi dominated Eastern Europe to England.

Rabbi Libman, noting the presence of children—many of them sitting on the floor at the sides of Beth El’s social hall – urged them to remember and understand what the moment was about: that their voices matter, and that they should never be afraid to speak up against injustice.

Rabbi Caine drew parallels between the Exodus story in the Bible and President Trump’s executive order.  Pharaoh didn’t see the Hebrews as individuals; only as a group who might someday rise against him, Caine said.  Pharaoh also believed that the Hebrews might join with his enemies to topple his regime.  But, the rabbi asked, why would they?  The Hebrews were among the most patriotic people in Egypt before their enslavement.

In more recent times, he said, Americans used to say about the Jews what opponents say about refugees and immigrants today – that they are different, speak different languages and can’t be assimilated.  It was not true then and it is not true now, he stressed.

Rabbi Meltzer taught that when Moses saw the Burning Bush he neither ran from it, nor tried to douse it.  Instead he analyzed it, realizing that the bush was not consumed by the fire.  He said Jews are a people of commentators, analysts and scientists who know that before we try to fix a problem such as terrorism we should give it serious consideration.  Additionally, he said, Jews are a people who are instructed not to stand idly by.  This is not the time to be spectators, he exhorted.  Be involved, write letters, be generous with money, time and our feet, he added.

Meltzer also noted that Purim will come in little more than a month.  As Mordechai once told Esther that perhaps God had arranged for her to become Ahasuerus’ queen exactly for that moment – to save the Jews – perhaps this is why today God has arranged for Jews in America to be influential – to help save their fellow human beings.

Charlene Seidle of the Leichtag Foundation told of that organization’s program to serve as models – at the Syrians’ request – for integrating a community into the American fabric.  She told of one Syrian refugee who arrived last May who worked in San Diego with an Israeli to create inspiring art works.

Her own grandfather was a refugee from Lithuania, who was turned away from the United States but who found a welcome in Rhodesia.  Eventually, he became the mayor of a town there – a true refugee story, and one which refugees from the seven banned countries may one day emulate in the United States.

The ADL’s Gilles said the organization’s mission is not only to stop the defamation of Jewish people, but to secure justice for all people.  No community can stand alone, she said.  “If another community is unsafe, we are unsafe.”

She emphasized that the United States already has a good process for vetting refugees, and that President Trump’s executive order does nothing to make America any safer.

Referring back to the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty, she declared.

“It’s not just words, it’s who we are.”

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com