Tag: Immigration

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CCAR Convention Immigration Social Justice

Embedding Ourselves in Baltimore: What Rabbis at CCAR Convention 2020 Can Learn From an Immigration Outreach Center Born Out of a Catholic Church

When the planning committee for the upcoming 2020 CCAR Convention met last spring, we asked ourselves, “How could we be in Baltimore and not look to understand the issues that the residents of this city meet each day?”

Like Cincinnati, Orange County, and Atlanta in recent memory, this convening of the Central Conference of American Rabbis will include opportunities to learn from some of the social justice issues endemic to Charm City. When we are together in March, we will explore issues around immigration, the toll of gun violence, climate change, the safety and care of people who are sex workers, and much more. 

One workshop I am excited about will be with Baltimore’s Immigrant Outreach Service Center (IOSC). This 501c3 organization is an immigration center which grew out of a social justice campaign at St. Matthew Catholic Church in Baltimore, through the help of foreign-born parishioner volunteers. IOSC helps immigrants build successful lives, offering a variety of services as wide as the variety of people they serve. There is a lot for us to learn from this organization that we can apply to our work settings: in advance of Passover, we will hear from people who came to the United States running from terrible circumstances towards a better opportunity for themselves and their families. We can also find inspiration from the experience of St. Matthew; the congregation’s demographics shifted with each passing year and so did the variety of programs they used to meet the needs of this changing population. And we will learn from the IOSC Executive Director and Senior Pastor of St. Matthew about how they created an independent non-profit organization that does essential justice work and has served immigrants from 123 countries.

As the CCAR continues to serve rabbis who serve in a multiplicity of settings, the Convention committee is also working to create learning opportunities that serve us. As we navigate the future of Jewish life in this time of change, I know that the social justice offering at CCAR Convention will inspire us all and supply tangible resources and inspiration to fuel the work we will do at home. I will see you in Baltimore. 

Rabbi Eleanor Steinman serves as an associate rabbi of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, Texas. CCAR Convention 2020 will be held in Baltimore, March 22-25, 2020. 

Categories
CCAR on the Road Immigration Social Justice

Truth, Justice and Reconciliation – Day 3

The last day of any mission, trip or conference leads one to think about travel and arriving safely at home.  I mean, what could this last morning offer us that could possibly match the power and intensity of the previous two?

The answer was not long in coming.  We began, as we had done the previous day, in study.  Instead of text, we were guided in history by our esteemed colleague, Rabbi Bernard Mehlman, Emeritus Rabbi of Temple Israel in Boston.  With the aid of video materials prepared by Rabbi Gary Zola of the American Jewish Archives, we learned the stories of senior colleagues who served in the South, rabbis whose names we recognized but whose stories were unknown to us.

For we had reached the moral crossroads of our journey to Montgomery and Selma.  What had the Jewish community done in the face of rigid segregation and the violence employed to maintain it?  We like to bring out the names of Reform rabbis who traveled South to stand with Dr. King  We mention Jews who were jailed, beaten and even killed during the tumultuous fight for civil and voting rights for African-Americans.  But most of them came from the North.  They played their valiant part and returned home, singed but not burned.  The Reform rabbis who lived in the communities of the South, who served Jews whose lives and livelihoods were at stake, had to balance a tightrope taut with fear and danger.

Rabbi Perry Nussbaum of Jackson, Mississippi, Rabbi Milton Grafman of Birmingham, Alabama and Rabbi Charles Mantiband of Florence, Alabama and Hattiesburg, Mississippi were on the front lines as much as the more famous Rabbi Jacob Rothschild of Atlanta, if not more.  In a big city like Atlanta, you could find allies for equality.  In small cities like those mentioned above, one’s capacity to serve, one’s ability to survive, was much more tenuous.

 They were in physical danger from racists, but often without support in their own congregations.  Jews were afraid of losing their jobs, having their businesses torched and their homes firebombed.  Their fear was real and legitimate.  But from gradualists like Rabbi Grafman to those who took public stands against racism like Rabbi Mantiband, they stood and withstood pressures that I cannot imagine in my own rabbinate (despite once coming face to face with the notorious James Wickstrom of the Posse Comitatus in northern Wisconsin in 1987).

We then visited a holy place, the parsonage of Dr. Martin Luther King when he served in Montgomery.  Dr. Shirley Cherry guided us from the visitors’ center and told the story of the street we were on, how the neighbors opened their homes to the Freedom Riders from the North and hid them from the Klan.  She told of us Vera Harris, who lived four doors down from the parsonage where we stood and how she had personally fed and cared for those brave activists.  She told us that Vera was in her mid-90’s and was in hospice care at home.  All of us, 48 rabbis strong, would go that morning to her house and pray for her body and soul, that her passing from this world to the next might be without pain and in peace.

Dr. Cherry took us from room to room in Dr. King’s house, starting with the front room that had been bombed while he was preaching at church.  Coretta and her baby were there, but in a back room and miraculously emerged unhurt.  From there we went looked into the bedrooms and the saw the simple way the King family lived.  I was fascinated, as were my colleagues by the small study packed floor to ceiling with books and a writing desk.  She showed us the lovely dining room table where Dr. King would sit with his family for dinner and eat with guests, the simple and the high and mighty.

But the real sacred space in that home was the kitchen.  Dr. Cherry told us of Dr. King’s long, sleepless night after the bombing, when he was receiving 30-40 calls with hate and death threats each day.  He went into the kitchen, heated up some coffee and paced the floor to think of what to do.  He sat down and had his epiphany.  His enemies had hatred, guns and bombs.  He had faith, but felt despair. 

Dr. King pleaded with God, saying, “I think the cause we are fighting for is right, but I’m losing my courage…”  And he heard his inner voice call him by name and say, “Martin Luther, stand up for justice, stand up for righteousness, and lo, I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  And all of the fears left him, Dr. Cherry said.  He went on standing for justice and righteousness until the moment he was struck down by the assassin’s bullet in Memphis on April 4, 1968.

Into Dr. King’s kitchen chair Dr. Cherry had placed Rabbi Jonah Pesner.  I don’t think she knew that he is the extraordinary, inspirational head of our Religious Action Center in Washington, DC, which has placed fighting racism at the top of Reform Judaism’s agenda.  As she described the divine experience of Dr. King during his long, lonely night of the soul, Rabbi Pesner, sitting in that simple chair, wept freely, as did many of us with him.

She led us out to the Peace Garden behind the house where we gathered for the final time.  Dr. Cherry repeated what she he had declared to us over and over again that morning.  She said with all of her passion and inner fire that, “love is the ultimate security in the time of ultimate vulnerability.”  She concluded by saying that there are things in this world that will break your heart, but you must not let them break your spirit.”

These three days have wrenched my soul.  I have been touched by colleagues, scholars and heroes I had never known.  I have re-learned the lesson of our age, that radical hatred must be met head on with radical love.  Violence may win for a moment but faith and love and justice will prevail in the end, even if that is only be achieved beyond my lifespan.  This I believe with every fiber of my being.  By this ideal I will live the rest of my life.  For this I commit my head, hand and heart.  

This is the prayer of my life.  All from three days in Alabama’s furious past and thorny present.  Just three days to kindle within a spirit of fire, the fire of memory and justice.

—
Rabbi Jamie Gibson serves Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh, PA.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

We Carry Them With Us

CCAR members and clergy from other faiths were in El Paso, Texas July 28-29th for two days in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. We have invited them to share their experiences in a short series on RavBlog.

I don’t know the little girl’s name, but she is still with me.

On the side of a long, lonely road, with nine somber adults as her only company, this three-year-old delighted. She flitted about, unencumbered  by the midsummer evening’s heavy, Texas heat. The billowing clouds of dust left in her wake provided a welcome relief from the eerie stillness of Clint’s Customs and Borders Facility, and the harsh geometry of the razor-wire fence surrounding it. This formerly little-known building became infamous for imprisoning children, stolen from their parents, penned in cages far beyond capacity, in conditions eye-witnesses described as squalid, degrading and torturous. The girl’s frolicking reminded me of how, beyond the basics of love, food, shelter and clothing, children need very little. They can amuse themselves with a patch of space, and the freedom to move about in it. 

“Ghost Child”

My colleagues and I had come to El Paso to join Reverend William Barber and Rabbi Rick Jacobs in Moral Monday at the Borderlands, an interfaith call to peaceful action, protesting our government’s intensifying assault on immigrants and refugees. A crowd of approximately 100 clergy stood at the gates of the El Paso detention center and, with about 500 people of faith accompanying us, requested to make a pastoral visit to the inmates inside. It was a national event, publicized and covered in every form of media. 
Several hours later, a carload of Reform Jewish women – one lay leader, one cantor, three rabbis – drove 45 minutes to Clint for a far smaller, but no less meaningful, act of resistance. Every Monday night, people gather in front of this detention center for a candlelight vigil. It is energized by Peggy and Yvonne, who live in El Paso. They feel desperate, as do so many of us, to get as proximate as possible to the frightened children languishing inside. And so they come, and sometimes others join them. 

Ashamed Veteran

I connected with Peggy through #CitizenPresence. This grassroots twitter network enables enraged Americans to pool resources, ideas and talents to support a steady flow of ordinary citizens into the Borderlands, so we can directly witness, protest and document the atrocities at their epicenter. It was started by Georgetown Law Professor, Heidi Li Feldman, who models that one determined person who pursues a vision can make great things happen.

When we arrived, we first met Ray, a retiree from Florida, who calls himself an “ashamed veteran.” Agitated to act, he raised a couple of thousand dollars and drove to Clint, set up large, hand-made protest signs, and remained there all day, every day, for as many weeks as his shoestring budget allowed. Chatting with Ray was Amy Cantrell, a Presbyterian Pastor, who had traveled from North Carolina for Moral Monday and is also part of #CitizensPresence.

Lullaby Circle

Peggy and Yvonne pulled up. Peggy brought candles, and Yvonne brought her three-year-old granddaughter. Peggy invited us to join in their weekly ritual (my word, not hers). Dusk dissolved into dark, framing a full moon. We lit our candles and formed a circle. Each of us shared our reason for coming. We poured out rage and determination, helplessness and hope. Ray expressed his frustration at giving all that he could and still feeling like it wasn’t making a difference. I responded with the Pirkei Avot verse, “The task is not ours to complete, nor can we desist from it.” Pastor Amy gifted us with a simple and profound summary of Rabbi Tarfon’s teaching: “Love is never wasted.”

We stood, our silence punctuated by little girl giggles and the occasional whoosh of a car zooming by.

Then, perhaps most poignant, our friends led us in singing lullabies, English and Spanish, to the children struggling for sleep under harsh lights, on hard floors, under Mylar sheets. Even if our offering couldn’t reach their ears, surely it was carried by God. 

Yvonne invited us to share a Jewish song. Cantor Hollis Schachner introduced Hashkiveinu, describing it as a lullaby assuring that the darkness of night is not something to fear, but a blanket of divine protection. We sang, weaving Hebrew into these melodies of resistance. 

By this point, sleepy from the late hour and her play, Yvonne’s granddaughter had made her way to our circle, settling inside at her grandmother’s feet. Peggy asked if we would offer a prayer. As the Jewish clergy began chanting and speaking the priestly benediction, all nine of us instinctively huddled close, protectively encircling the little girl. Nine adults, with a small child bringing us to minyan. A child whose name I don’t know.  A child happy and well fed, heading home to a bath, a soft bed and a house full of family. A child only separated from the many children, whose names we don’t know, by concrete walls and barbed wire, the distance of a ball toss, and luck. 

We carry them with us.

—
Rabbi Sarah Reines serves Temple Shaaray Tefila in New York City.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Sunday Morning: The Shelter

CCAR members and clergy from other faiths were in El Paso, Texas July 28-29th for two days in support of Moral Mondays at the Borderlands. We have invited them to share their experiences in a short series on RavBlog.

Often, at the beginning of the summer, I am invited to bless the boats alongside a priest as families (some from my congregation) make their seasonal maiden voyage on their private boats from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, out to the Jamaica Bay or Atlantic Ocean. The priest makes his prayer as each boat passes in front of us. I offer the Priestly Blessing (sometimes in Hebrew for the Jewish boaters) and a Nisiyah tova or Tzetchem l’shalom as they go by.

That Sunday morning over a week ago in El Paso, families of a different sort “sailed” in front of me and my colleagues, as they passed by through the doors of a hidden shelter for asylum-seekers, following their release from a local detention center.

Thanks to Rabbi Sarah Reines’ preparation for our time in El Paso, we learned that we could volunteer at this temporary shelter for the “lucky” families, who possessed a phone number or a sponsor. They arrive at these “hidden” shelters for a few hours, perhaps even overnight, until they would get on a bus, or into a car, or on a plane, headed to somewhere in the US. A week later, a white supremacist gunned down 22 people in a nearby Walmart. Now I understand why the location of this shelter is secret.

I learned later, that the shelter is staffed entirely by volunteers and that the rent was $60K per month. The shelter had a large room of cots, a children’s playroom, a dining area, an office, rooms to interview families and to make the phone call, a Hygiene Room, and a clothing “store.”

My morning began in the Children’s Room where I stayed for a few minutes. The language barrier was a problem and well, I’m not a “natural” with small children. Since Cantor Jen Rueben had it down to an art, I moved to a room to sort used clothing into different sizes where I didn’t need to speak to anyone. The donated clothing was ratty, nonetheless, it was a change of clothes, something each family member needed. However, when a new busload of asylum-seekers arrived, I was transferred to the Hygiene Room, to disburse toiletries.

It wasn’t really a Hygiene Room, but rather, a Hygiene Closet, an un-air conditioned, two-doored closet. While there, in between families who passed through, my daughter happened to call me on my cell phone. I complained to her about the lack of air-conditioning in the “room.”  She asked me to repeat my complaint word for word back to her. Oh, right, I hadn’t left my town or homeland and walked 500 miles or exorbitantly paid someone to drive me to escape a dangerous situation. Rather, I was kvetching about the lack of air conditioning. Humility is one of the greatest gifts a child can bestow upon parents.

Three years of High School Spanish was for naught. A poster on the door with translations and our charade-game body movements helped Rabbi Kim Geringer and I manage the disbursement of toiletries. But like the story of Balaam and Balaak, every time I opened my mouth, Hebrew came out. Neither a curse, nor blessing, the brain cells dedicated to language had, sadly at that moment, been usurped by Hebrew. Again, another lesson in humility.

After an asylum-seeking family would complete a phone call with a Spanish translator to their sponsor or family member, to arrange for transportation to a home where they would await a hearing, they were sent to the Hygiene Room. Prior to entering the room, there was a box of stuffed animals. With delight, children picked out one stuffed animal and put it into a recyclable grocery bag, that contained the entirety of a family’s earthly possessions. Upon entering the Hygiene Room, where they would receive a large Ziplock worth of goods: diapers in all sizes (they were allotted four diapers), and if needed, a Ziplock bags of infant formula. They received one comb, toothbrushes, one razor, a tube of shaving cream, a bar of soap, one barrette, one hair tie and one headband. One small “travel-size” roll-on deodorant, one hair brush, a small tube of toothpaste, a few tampons or sanitary napkins, one lip balm, and one towel and one washcloth per family member. I invited the girls to select hair ties and barrettes. Alas, there was only one “Elsa” lip balm, which I gave to the first girl who entered the room with her mother. Who knows whether this young girl had even seen the film “Frozen.” Children I know have seen it multiple times.

But I was not there to learn about humility or gratitude. A secondary gain perhaps, but the point was to make this horrific, traumatic trek from Central America a little easier. I was there to volunteer. They did not arrive with suitcases. They arrived with a bag. We didn’t know their stories. We didn’t know their fears. Who knows whom they left behind, or what they left behind, or even where they were going? Which child who came through the “Hygiene Room” perhaps, had to drink water from a toilet? Were these reunited families or separated families? Were they wearing ankle “bracelets” that knew their every move? I do not know the answer to these questions.

We only saw the “lucky ones” who had been released from detention centers.

Nisia Tova and Tzetchem l’shalom, I wanted to say. It was on the tip of my tongue.

—
Rabbi Marjorie Slome serves the West End Temple in Neponsit, New York.

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Is Seeing Believing or Believing Seeing?

Recently, I read a report from the Rand Corporation entitled, “Truth Decay: An Initial Exploration of the Diminishing role of Facts and analysis in American Public Life” written by Jennifer Kavanaugh and Michael D. Rich in which the researchers rediscovered that, “…national political and civil discourse in the United States has been characterized by “Truth Decay,” defined as a set of four interrelated trends: an increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data; a blurring of the line between opinion and fact; an increase in the relative volume, and resulting influence, of opinion and personal experience over fact; and lowered trust in formerly respected sources of factual information. The most damaging consequences of Truth Decay include the erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and disengagement of individuals from political and civic institutions, and uncertainty over national policy.”  While this should surprise no one, it lead to wonder how much decay was really going on with me as it relates to the most pressing issues of our day.  How much do I “know” and how much do I “believe” or want to believe about what is happening all around me.

This concern has surfaced most acutely as it relates to the immigration and asylum seeker policies unfolding in our country and prominently felt in my current home state of Texas. I saw the reports of families separated; I watched in pain and horror of overcrowded detention centers, children sleeping on floors, frantic parents, crying children.  I listened to analyses trying to explain away what I saw, and trying to emphasize what I saw, sometimes in the same news program.  I absorbed the politician’s spin ono both sides of the aisle.  I talked to immigration attorneys and asylum seeker support service providers.  I spoke with a close friend who works for the Department of Homeland Security who works on the border who told me flat out, “don’t believe what you see or hear because it’s all wrong.”  Apart from the irony of insisting I believe him over everything else, part of me knew what he was really saying was, “you gotta see this yourself.”

So when the invitation came from Repairers of the Breach, the Rev. Dr. William Barber’s organization, to join with Rabbi Rick Jacobs,  my friend and colleague Imam Omar Suleiman and others to bear witness to this issue in El Paso last Sunday and Monday, I knew I had no choice but to go and see for myself and this was the time to be a part of the testimony of this great stain on the soul of our country; that there is, in the words of Kohelet, “…a time for tearing and a time for sewing; a time for silence and a time for speaking…” and that time is now.

Upon arriving in El Paso and connecting with URJ and RAC staff, clergy, and congregants from our movement from as far away as New York and Boston, it became clear that this was not just a press conference and an opportunity to march in the Texas heat, but to add a moral voice to a policy problem that will become a defining moment in American history.  We gathered to learn about non-violent direct action – a euphemism for civil disobedience that might result in arrest.  This dominated the conversation for the next couple of hours; will you get arrested?  What does your arrest mean in light of this issue?  Does it matter?  Is being arrested more about you or about the moment and movement?  After the training were honored to hear from a number of powerful and important people.  Dr. Barber Spoke.  Imam Suleiman spoke.  Rabbi Jacobs spoke, as did a few other of our leaders.  But the most powerful witnessing that first night came from people directly affected by the immigration and asylum problems.  There were asylum seekers from Guatemala sharing their ridiculously dangerous and lengthy journey; asylum seekers sent back to Mexico to wait; people who were separated from their parents and children.  It was heartbreaking to hear their firsthand accounts.  It was liberating to hear their words without commentary, derision or spin.  It was maddening to know this is happening in our country, in my state, right in front of me.

The next day was the day we would make our way through the heat to the detention center.  We learned that non-violent direct action and getting arrested would make the work of the local support systems for immigrants and seekers more difficult.  Instead the hundreds assembled would march to the entrance of the detention center and as clergy gathered toward the front, make numerous demands; to pastor to those detained, the end of inhumane conditions at the detention centers, end of family separations, end to the wait in Mexico asylum process.  Of course we were not let in, but as Dr. Barber said, “We condemn and call evil and unjust the caging of people, the making people drink from toilets, the refusal to even give them a toothbrush. You’re holding angels in this place. But you will not hold them forever. We join them now, and not only do we bring condemnation, but we bring hope. It doesn’t have to be this way. America, turn around. America, repent. America, stop. America, change your ways.”

Seeing is believing and indeed I do believe I saw.

—
Rabbi Andrew Marc Paley serves Temple Shalom in Dallas, Texas.

Categories
Immigration

Don’t Let the Light Go Out

Rony, a former bus driver, escaped from his native Honduras when his life was threatened. The “mafia” had already killed his father and his brother for failing to pay the required extortion. He was next. Seeking asylum in the US, Rony was arrested and detained at a private prison owned and run by The GEO Group in the California high desert town of Adelanto. I met him this past year, my second visit to the facility. My first attempt was aborted when, along with a busload of people of faith and clergy, I tried to visit detainees there. When GEO learned of our plan, they put the facility on lock-down, not only refusing to let us in, but also ejecting family members waiting to see their loved ones. It was 110 degrees outside.

A recent report by Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General flagged serious health and safety standards violations in Adelanto. There have been suicide attempts: nooses fashioned with bed sheets were hanging in 15 of the 20 examined cells. There are no recreational facilities or skills-building classes, and detainees are allowed a one hour visit per day — given the distance from their families, many get few to no visitors. Is this how we want our country to behave?

Our tradition teaches us to welcome the stranger, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our Statue of Liberty proclaims: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…” So are we OK with a private prison incarcerating 2,000 human beings for the crime of trying to find refuge and safety, to escape from persecution, violence and extreme poverty?

To shed light on the conditions in Adelanto, Bend the Arc, the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, and I, organized an interfaith vigil there on the 8th night of Chanukah. At the darkest time of the year, we wanted to shine the candles’ brightness on the reality of our government’s policies towards immigrants and refugees. But we also wanted to offer the expansive light as a symbol of the possibility of hope to those locked behind bars.

Part of our effort was to rally support for Rony. His bond (a form of bail) was set at $10,000, a staggering amount for someone with no ties in the US. We had hoped to get him out by Chanukah, but had not raised sufficient funding. However, just this week, we reached our goal: Rony was bonded out this week, though he still faces a court decision about his asylum application.

A class action lawsuit has been filed against GEO on behalf of thousands of detainees, and we will continue to be vigilant on their behalf.

—

Rabbi Suzanne Singer serves Temple Beth El in Riverside, California. 

Categories
Immigration

Tornillo: “Shut It Down!” And the Commentary Is Important.

I was privileged to join a bold and visionary group of midwestern Reform rabbis — led by Rabbis Bruce Elder, Miriam Terlinchamp, Joshua Whinston, Jonah Zinn, and Todd Zinn — on a November pilgrimage  to the U.S.-Mexican border in and near El Paso, Texas. The centerpiece of that visit was at Tornillo, a tent-city detention facility for immigrant teenagers. A rally outside the Tornillo camp prominently featured the chant, “Shut It Down!”

I participated in the pilgrimage as the CCAR Board’s representative. I am not at all new to immigration activism — In June, for example, I was arrested, in a civil disobedience action related to immigration at the Arkansas Capitol as part of the Arkansas Poor People’s Campaign. However, in mid-November, I didn’t yet feel fully comfortable as I joined the chants, “Shut It Down.”

Today, after further research, I am.

First, some words about my reluctance. Several years ago, URJ Greene Family Camp, one of my two cherished camp homes, had served as a facility where unaccompanied minor immigrants were housed. The nonprofit provider inside the Tornillo facility, BCFS, was also the provider at our camp. Moreover, our colleague, Rabbi Ben Zeidman, who is deeply committed to immigration justice, had visited inside the Tornillo camp with an interfaith clergy delegation which had found conditions to be acceptable. For a moving piece about the important work of Greene Family Camp in those days, please read these words by my friend and fellow Greene alum, Mandy Karp Golman.

The more I learned, though, the more I became convinced that the situation has changed. The facility at Tornillo must be promptly closed, the children detained there must be united with U.S. sponsors without delay, and we must strongly advocate against the establishment of  similar facilities.

During the summer, massive public outcry forced the Trump Administration to back down on its policy of separating undocumented immigrant parents from the children who accompanied them. What most Americans still do not know is that teenage immigrants continue to be separated from responsible non-parental adults with whom they arrive at the border — most often older siblings, aunts and uncles, or grandparents. We must protest all family separations, absent evidence of abuse or significant felony charges. These separations have massively increased the numbers of supposedly “unaccompanied” minors now in U.S. detention.

Back in the days when URJ Greene Family Camp was partnering with BCFS, that nonprofit provider actively sought U.S. sponsors for the truly unaccompanied minors who were in federal custody. Today, government policy has dramatically curtailed BCFS efforts in this regard, putting teens and potential sponsors at great risk. Potential sponsors reasonably fear coming forward in the current environment, exposing them to potential deportation. In fact, the process of seeking sponsors often serves as “bait” to lure family members into processes that may result in their deportation.

The result is a massive multiplication in the numbers of incarcerated teens — and the length, perhaps indefinite, or until they turn eighteen and are eligible for deportation — whose only crime is arriving at our border, seeking freedom in the Land of the Free.

Torah is clear: “You must not oppress strangers, nor harm them” (Exodus 22:21). Our government is perpetrating grave, even permanent, damage, upon a massive and increasing number of young people at our border. For that reason, I am delighted that our Reform Movement has officially joined the Close Tornillo Coalition.

Now, you have the commentary. Let us all raise our voices to demand that our government “Shut It Down!”

—

Rabbi Barry H. Block serves Congregation B’nai Israel in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is a member of the CCAR Board of Trustees. 

Categories
Immigration Social Justice

Searching for Possibility and Hope

A smile can make a huge difference. That is what two of my congregants and I discovered when we came to McAllen, Texas to volunteer for a week with the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center for immigrants newly released from detention. McAllen is the largest processing center for immigrants seeking to enter the United States. After arriving at the border, they are detained by immigration authorities. If and when they are released, they are taken to the Central Bus Station. That is where staff and volunteers from the Respite Center pick them up and bring them to the center for a hot meal, a shower, a change of clothes, before being accompanied back to the bus station where they are sent off across the country to meet their sponsor — usually a family member. Once there, they will face a court date and the decision of a judge as to whether they can stay here or be deported back home.

These are the lucky ones. They are not placed in detention beyond a few days, and they are not being permanently separated from their children. It is not entirely clear why they are being released while so many others are kept in detention for many months. It may be because they have a sponsor and a credible case for asylum, but no one we spoke to was entirely sure as the system seems to be somewhat arbitrary. However, their situation is far from fortunate. They come primarily from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, countries torn apart by violence and plagued by extreme poverty. These immigrants are fleeing the violence, often fearful for their own lives and that of their children. Their dangerous journeys average 3-4 weeks during which they travel by foot, by bus, and/or on La Bestia, the freight trains which they ride on the roof. Some of the women are pregnant, some of the adults are carrying newborns.

Once they turn themselves in or are arrested at the border, they are put into detention for 3-4 days in what the immigrants call “La Hielera” — the Ice Box — because of how cold it is in there. One woman, Maria Luisa, told us that she was separated from her two sons, forbidden from hugging them, forced to sleep on the floor with only an aluminum blanket, barely fed a frozen burrito, allowed to shower once for three minutes, and kicked awake at 3 o’clock in the morning. She along with all the others who are released, was forced to wear an ankle monitor to ensure that she would appear for her court date. Her ankle bracelet, as was the case with the others we saw, was tight and uncomfortable, and made her leg swell.

This inhumane treatment is in marked contrast to how these immigrants are welcomed at the Respite Center, which was established four years ago by Sister Norma Pimentel. In that time, something like 100,000 immigrants have come through their doors. The motto over the front door, “Restoring Human Dignity,” is what drives the staff and the revolving groups of volunteers from around the country. The immigrants here are met with kindness, concern and care. When they first arrive, they are rather stone-faced and wary, but soon they relax and respond to the warmth being shown to them. We tried as much as possible to look them each in the face and to smile, acknowledging their humanity. We served them a bowl of chicken soup, helped them find a fresh set of clothes and shoes, and guided them to the showers where we kept two washing machines and two dryers going constantly to keep up with the volume of towels. Because the clothes on their backs have been worn for close to a month, we threw them away. We also put together snack bags and sandwiches to take with them when they returned to the bus station for the next step of their journey.

One of my congregants was asked by some of her friends whether the children we saw actually belonged to the adults they were with. There is no question that these adults were their parents! They demonstrated a great deal of love and affection for their children, and the children were clearly very attached to them. They are people like you and I, seeking a better life for themselves and their family. “There but for the grace of God go I…” They are looking for a new start, one with possibilities, one with hope. As we enter the month of Elul on the road to the High Holy Days, we too are in search of a new beginning. Let us be thankful for our good fortune. Let us also resolve to remember those whose lives have been disrupted by war, civil unrest, gangs, and poverty. At the very least, we can offer them a smile, a reminder that they too are created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image.

—

Rabbi Suzanne Singer serves Temple Beth El in Riverside, California. 

Categories
Immigration

A Poem about Then(?)

Comparisons between the Holocaust and contemporary issues are difficult to assess.

We maintain that the Shoah was unique in its purpose, scope, and cynical systematic organization. We argue that to label each injustice as a forerunner to a new genocidal move by evil people cheapens the memory of the 6 million and fails to recognize that complexity and nuance through which evil enters our world.

Yet we also maintain that the sacred pledge of “Never again” maintains its meaning only if we are willing to assess each act of injustice to determine whether it might be part of a systematic, strategic move against another group of people. We easily remember the end result of the Holocaust – the murder of 6 million Jews and another 5 million other people. But we want to remember also that the Holocaust did not arise ex nihilo (out of nothingness). It was a slow piling on of one injustice after another, one act after another to dehumanize the victims and desensitize the rest of the population.

A Poem about Then(?)
By Rabbi Paul Kipnes

They say it started slowly
One injustice at a time
They desensitized us quite deliberately
‘Til we became partners in their crime

They preyed upon our prejudice
Against those “outsiders” in our land
Whom they depicted as foreign parasites
In a conniving sleights of hand

They moved from the rapists and the criminals
To judges, the rule of law, and the independent press
Hammering upon our dissatisfaction
Until we also were ready to disposses

We ignored the times they slandered us
Because they flattered with such skill
We forgave the times they marginalized us
Because our brethren were part of it, still

We forgot that we were once like them
Hated immigrants, blackballed outsiders
We forget how much we suffered then
Because we’re now comfortable insiders

Are we discounting the values we professed,
Those messages we should amplify?
Take care of the children, they’re our future
Love the stranger, Don’t stand idly by

When we declared “Never again would we let it happen”
Was that just the killing or the xenophobic mindset too?
Was it the systematic undermining of morality?
Or just that they came for me… the Jew?

They say it started slowly
That the killing came much later
After the soil of our souls had been fertilized
By a master manipulator

—

Rabbi Paul Kipnes serves Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA.

Categories
Immigration Reform Judaism Social Justice

One Big Victory, No Matter How Small: Immigration Reform

Yestel Velasquez is a deeply-rooted member of the New Orleans community who has literally helped rebuild the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Yestel is a community leader fighting against civil rights abuses and racial profiling in New Orleans. He is also an undocumented immigrant who has lived and worked in America for nearly a decade.

On May 13, 2014, Yestel was caught up in a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while getting his car fixed at an autoshop frequented by Latino clients. Detained by ICE, Yestel filed a complaint with Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and was soon after granted a three months stay of his deportation.  He was not, however, released from detention.

On Monday, August 4th, Yestel was informed by ICE that his stay would be revoked and he would be deported by the end of the week.

How do I know about Yestel Velasquez?  Because over a year ago, as Rabbis Organizing Rabbis, we pledged as Reform rabbis to work for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. We rejoiced when bipartisan immigration legislation passed the Senate, but did not stop our work once the House of Representatives refused to act.

Instead, led by our intrepid Lead Organizer, Joy Friedman of Just Congregations, we worked to find out how we could make a difference in the lives of undocumented Americans. At our Chicago CCAR convention, we learned about the movement to prevent deportations that would not occur were the bill passed by the Senate to become the law of the land. By the spring meetings of our Commission on Social Action (CSA) in May, we decided the Reform Movement would engage in immigration reform, one human being at a time, by protecting immigrant families from being torn apart through deportations.

It is a long and instructive (but not appropriate for this piece) story about how we worked closely with the CSA to find national partners who would ask us to help in the defense of potential deportees.

Last Tuesday, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) heard of Yestel’s plight and asked us to act quickly. The CSA leadership thoughtfully and quickly vetted the case, and by Wednesday, the 20 rabbi ROR advisory team was authorized to act. We had our phone scripts and were armed with information and the moral high ground. Alongside partners across the country, we were ready to help save Yestel and his family. In just a few hours, ROR made eleven phone calls to ICE Deputy Director Daniel Ragsdale, and another eleven to Director David Rivera of the New Orleans ICE office.

We all called to share our concern with the deportation of Mr. Yestel Velazquez. Sometimes we had no choice but to leave voicemail messages; other times we were able to engage in conversation. I made our first phone call to Deputy Director Ragsdale’s office and he didn’t understand why a rabbi from Chicago was calling. By our last call of the day, we had made an impression – “And where are you calling from, Rabbi?” he asked.

By Thursday, we heard great news from our partners at NDLON: ICE released Yestel from detention and granted him a new one-year stay of removal! More importantly, ICE guaranteed Yestel protection from retaliatory deportation.

I do not know if we saved a single life.  But I am glad to have been part of the team that is working, one person at a time, to save the entire world.

Next time the chance comes, do you want to join the team?

Rabbi Seth M. Limmer is rabbi of 
Chicago Sinai Congregation, in Chicago, IL.