“For You Were Strangers”

I am an immigrant. An American born in Alabama, I have lived all over the United States. And for the last 5 years, thanks to a rabbinical position that brought me to the Toronto suburbs, I have made my home in Canada. I love both of my countries – the one in which I was born and have lived most of my life, and the one in which I currently reside. In many ways they are very similar. This week they feel very, very different.

My grandmother was also an immigrant. In 1933 at the age of 8, she and her family fled deteriorating conditions in Poland and made their way to America. She had it harder than I did as an immigrant – her father had preceded her to New York by several years, and she had to learn a new language, start the First Grade over again, and build a new life for herself. It is a common immigrant story. With the exception of Native Americans, every one of us can find something like it in our family history.

Every one of us.

The America I know is built on immigration. It is a country made strong by the ingenuity and determination of people who came here from elsewhere to build a life for themselves and their families. It is a country that has not always had a rosy relationship with immigration (we closed our doors to refugees during World War II also), but that has been stronger when its doors were open. These are the values of the United States of America.

They are also the values of Judaism. The Torah reminds us over and over again that we were strangers in a foreign land. And it exhorts us over and over again to treat the stranger – the foreigner, the immigrant, the refugee – with respect and dignity. It says this explicitly in Leviticus 19:34: “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.”

Today, I am appalled and frightened by the actions of my President. My values – both American and Jewish – teach me the importance of diversity and of welcoming the stranger. A ban on immigrants from Muslim countries is thinly veiled racism and an affront to American values. A ban on refugees is nothing less than abhorrent, especially when so many are fleeing danger and seeking a better life.

As Jews, we know the experience of being the stranger. We know it from our ancient history, and we know it from our much more recent history. It was not even 100 years ago that our own families were fleeing persecution and genocide. The fact that President Trump issued this horrifying Executive Order on International Holocaust Remembrance Day lends it a sad irony that cannot be ignored.

As a Jew, an American, and the grandchild of am immigrant, I want my country to welcome newcomers of all backgrounds, and to recognize that they represent a continuation of the American story.

As a Jew, an American, and the grandchild of an immigrant, I demand that my government NEVER discriminate on the basis of religion. This is abhorrent and an affront to our way of life.

As a Jew, an American, and the grandchild of an immigrant, I want my America to value and encourage diversity.

The ancient Rabbis noted in the Talmud that according to Jewish tradition, humanity started with only a single person – Adam. Why, they ask, did God not create a whole tribe or a whole nation to begin with? So that no person could say to another, “My ancestors are greater than yours.”

May we work together to build a world where the barriers between us are lowered, not raised. And may this country of strangers and immigrants hold fast to its true values of tolerance, diversity, and pluralism.