"The Knock on The Door"

This sermon was given on Yom Kippur Day, 2013, at The Fauquier Jewish Congregation, Warrenton, Virginia

                

Finally… The knock on the door.  Jews.  Always waiting for the knock on the door. It was the summer of 1942, and they had come finally come for him.  They were there for my father. 

My mother, pregnant, peered over his shoulder, my sister Sandra at her side. The two men showed their badges. U.S. Federal Agents were at the door, at his home in Bound Brook, New Jersey.  An illegal immigrant, he had managed to avoid detection for 10 years. 

He was an “illegal” because, in 1932, desperate to get out of Hungary, but too close to military age to get a legal exit visa, his parents had paid a man to pass my father off as his slightly younger son. This allowed my father to get on a boat for America, albeit illegally, with a false identity.

Arriving with nothing but one family connection, he worked, studied, learned English, bought a new car, built a business, married and bought a home.  And he did all that before being caught.

His story ended well.  He wasn’t deported. A special Act of Congress allowed him to stay.  Once he was legal, he brought over as many of his family as he could and set them up in businesses of their own.

And although he tried, he wasn’t able to secure visas for his two sisters, and they, perished, along with their husbands and children, After the Holocaust, he brought over the surviving members of his family. He became a tax-payer… a very good one at that. He never went back to Hungary. 

Each of us has an American immigration story.  It’s just a matter of which generation, which boat, or which plane.

Each generation is held at the mercy of the immigration process.  Since the early 19^th century, the Jewish community has prided itself on taking an active role on immigration issues.   Fighting for a just and compassionate immigration system is not only a Jewish Imperative, it is our legacy. The Jewish Community holds dear these three values: “Protecting the Stranger, a fair justice system, and caring for the poor.”

There are at least 35 references to the Hebrew word “Ger” or “stranger who dwells among us” in the Torah and in the Books of the Prophets.

Leviticus 19:33-34 states:

 “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:  I am the Lord and your God”.

In the Book of Psalms as well as those of the prophets Jeremiah and Malachi, God repeatedly mentions the stranger or immigrant along with widows and orphans as the most vulnerable among us deserving special attention and protection.

Deuteronomy 16:12, commands us to establish a justice system: “Judges and police officers you shall place in all your gates… and they shall judge the people with righteous justice.." and we are also given this admonishment,  “Justice, Justice, Shall You Pursue.”

Leviticus 24:22

“You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.'"

Hillel said, “The main idea of the Torah is 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Everything else is commentary.” 

I’d like to quote Rabbi Jason Rosenberg, who, in writing about Immigration Reform cautions us: “ It would be incredibly ironic for us, as Jews, to be less than welcoming when it comes to immigration policy, because, we’ve often been the victim of it.  We’ve been the victims of restrictions on our own migrations for centuries.  We’ve fled persecution and been told, time and again, “you're not welcome here.” Even when others were trying to wipe our people off the map, we’ve been told to go somewhere else.  Just not here.”

When it comes to immigration issues, Jews have always had a dog in the fight. A strict immigration quota was imposed in 1921, to stem the wave of Jewish immigration from the pogroms in Russia.  The Immigration Act of 1924 brought even more restrictive quotas. And 1929 brought Jewish immigration to a trickle.

In 1938, shortly after Kristallnacht, “The Night of the Broken Glass," a poll by the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago showed that while 94 percent of Americans disapproved of Nazi treatment of Jews, 72 percent were opposed to admitting a large number of German Jewish in the United States. In 1939, the Wagner-Rodgers bill that would have permitted 20,000 Jewish children to enter the US, independent of the German quota, was allowed to die in the Senate. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. We know our current immigration system is broken.  I am not even going to suggest a fix; the politics are too inflamed, as is the moral outrage.  All I can say is, “there but by the grace of God go I.”

There is no need to lecture on the current state of immigration, detention, and deportation. I don’t need to tell you the horror stories… the media takes care of that.  I don’t need to tell you how each state and jurisdiction handles or mishandles its immigrant population… be it legal or illegal…you’ve seen it all on TV or read about it.  And frankly, some of it is too troubling and graphic to talk about with children in the room. Let’s just say that the Jewish concept of RACHMONIS – COMPASSION… is totally lacking.

I recently read an article by a young modern orthodox Jewish man in New York City.  His parents came to America on vacation from Israel a dozen years ago.  He was a little boy at the time.  They overstayed their tourist visa, established a life here, and raised their son here.  But it wasn’t until recently the young man found out he was in America illegally.  His dilemma, as a Jew is this: According to the Halackhic  rule of Dina de-Malhut Dina, a law that has been on the books since the Babylonia captivity, a Jew is bound by the law of the land in which he dwells.  His conflict of conscience? If he is, in fact, bound to the law of the land, then is it his responsibility to self deport?

No one leaves his or her native country with out a good reason, as your family’s personal narrative will attest.  Look into your own heart: what circumstances would drive you to risk everything?

I’d like to give you a hopefully, science-fiction scenario.  What if Israel’s survival were on the brink?  Would America open it’s doors willingly? Who would protect the rights of THAT immigrant population?

I hope that during the coming year, you take the time to educate yourself on what Jews and other faith-based groups have done to safeguard the rights and safety of those in custody, or stuck in the quagmire of the immigration process.  I hope you learn enough to develop a compassionate position on Immigration Reform. 

As Jews we are in an unusual position.  We are supposed to live by the law of the land. But as AMERICAN’S we have the power to shape those laws… to create new laws… and to monitor their enforcement.

Repentance is the theme of Yom Kippur.  And as we will see later this morning in our Haftorah from the Book of Isaiah, fasting and prayer mark the day, but they avail nothing unless accompanied by acts of social justice.

Should we, God willing, be sealed in the Book of Life for another year, let each one of us take action on behalf of the stranger, so that none of us need to atone for standing idly by.

Hillel, in Pirket Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, gives us these words of wisdom to live by. “EEm ayn ani lee, mi lee, If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  But if I am only for myself, what am I? And, if not now, when?

Rabbi Rose Lyn Jacob    09/13/2013