Other items in today’s column include:
* Jews and the impeachment process
* Remember the St. Louis!
SAN DIEGO—Our area may wish to consider an idea raised by Oakland Mayor Rebecca Kaplan that cruise ships may provide appropriate lodging for our homeless population. Older cruise ships are being sold all the time, and with some ingenuity, they can be outfitted to serve not only as dormitories and mess halls but also as places where necessary social services and medical treatment can be easily provided.
Cruise ships already are compartmentalized to accommodate passengers, but other kinds of ships also could be put into service after refitting. Modular living spaces could be bolted onto the decks of cargo ships or decommissioned Navy vessels, which so often are towed out to sea, used for target practice, and then sunk. Wouldn’t helping to solve our nation’s homeless problem be a better use for them?
As the former executive director of the San Diego Cruise Industry Consortium (1983-1991), and as one who has been privileged to take numerous cruises over my lifetime, I can anticipate some of the problems that would have to be solved before ships of any kind could be converted into homeless shelters.
Berthing space at the Port of San Diego, especially for large ships, is quite limited. Where could such a ship be placed? Downtown near the Cruise Ship Terminal, Broadway Pier, or the Navy Pier? South of the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, where so much of our military fleet is now positioned? Whatever berth one might suggest, there will be competing possible uses for it. No doubt there also will be objections from neighbors who realize that the area adjacent to the lodging ship will be transformed into gateways for the homeless.
Another issue will be maintenance of high levels of sanitation on a lodging ship. We’ve all read about the outbreak of noroviruses on some cruise ships, with passengers so sick they have to be confined to their cabins. Such a situation could also envelop a homeless population without appropriate safeguards. On cruise ships, there are hand-sanitizer stations outside every dining room as well as at other strategic locations. People involved in food preparation wear hair nets and gloves. Nevertheless, bacteria-born illnesses can still be spread by hand-to-hand contact, or hand-to-object-to-hand contact.
While admittedly there are possible drawbacks, using ships may be a less expensive, more compact, and more productive way than trying to build more land-based housing. To address one of our nation’s most pressing problems, certainly, the idea is worth study!
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Jews and the impeachment process
Like most Americans, I followed the completely partisan House Judiciary Committee vote on impeachment of President Donald Trump. None of the members of the San Diego delegation sit on the Judiciary Committee, so I have no local angle to report about that, but I did note that five members of the 24-member Democratic majority on the committee are fellow Jews: the chairman: Jerrold Nadler of New York, Steve Cohen of Tennessee; Ted Deutch of Florida, David N. Cicilline of Rhode Island, and Jeremy Raskin of Maryland. They all voted in the majority for impeachment. There are no Jewish members among the 17 committee Republicans, who voted in the minority against impeachment. When the issue comes to the House floor, two Jewish Republicans – Lee Zeldin of New York and David Kustoff of Tennessee — will get to weigh in. Also waiting for the floor vote are 20 other Jewish Democrats, including Susan Davis of San Diego. Altogether there are 27 Jews eligible to vote in the 435-member House of Representatives on the impeachment question.
I was impressed by the solemnity with which members of both parties cast their votes in the Judiciary Committee. Despite all the partisan sniping between Republicans and Democrats, I think the members of both sides were aware that they were casting a very important vote on an issue that has seriously divided the country. The atmosphere was very heavy, appropriately so.
On the Senate side, where Republicans are in the majority, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says he favors a quick vote on the matter, as he considers acquittal a done deal. Chairing the session will be Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed to his position by former President George W. Bush, who though a Republican is certainly no fan of President Trump. It will be interesting to see how assertive Roberts will be in running the trial. His decisions on procedure will stand unless overridden by a majority vote of the 100-member U.S. Senate.
If this were a usual trial, many of the “jurors” would be disqualified for conflicts of interest. Some may feel that their own political futures are on the line. McConnell himself has a clear conflict of interest in the fact that his wife, Elaine Chao, is Secretary of Transportation in the Trump Cabinet, who could be fired by the President at any time.
There are nine Jewish senators, including California’s own Dianne Feinstein, who would participate in a trial, assuming the House approves the impeachment resolutions. Talk about possible conflicts of interest, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is one of the frontrunning candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Before Michael Bennet of Colorado dropped out of the presidential race, he had a similar conflict of interest. Bennet is Jewish as a matter of halakha as he is the son of a Jewish mother, who survived the Holocaust, and a Christian father. However, he has expressed himself ambivalently on the issue of his religion. He has said he was influenced by both religions and “believes in God.”
Finally, if any of the impeachment issues in the future are to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court, three of the nine justices are Jewish. All appointed by Democratic presidents, they are Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan.
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Remember the St. Louis!
Whenever the United States turns away asylum seekers, forcing them to either return to the countries they fled, or wait across the border in increasingly hostile Tijuana, we Jews should remember the story of the St. Louis, whose 900 passengers were seeking to escape the Holocaust but were refused entry to the United States. The ship had to return to Europe and many of those passengers perished at the hands of the Nazis.
Can’t we learn anything from our history? Although years after the fact, there have been numerous expressions of regret about the fate of those passengers. Can’t we say that in many cases, the would-be asylees face futures just as terrifying if they return to lands where violence and gangs are taking a high, ruthless toll.
In our American justice system, it is often said, “Better to let a guilty man go free, than to convict an innocent one.” However, in dealing with civilians seeking the protection of our country, this logic seems to be turned on its head, even in the case of children. The motto seems to be “better to keep all the innocent out, rather than let one guilty one come in.”
How heartless! How wrong! How opposite the poetic sentiments of Emma Lazarus, immortalized at the base of the Statue of the 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!
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
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