Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Over 1,000 U.S. Rabbis Petition Lawmakers To Welcome Refugees

More than 1,000 U.S. rabbis have signed a letter calling on elected officials to welcome refugees.

The letter, sponsored by HIAS, the lead Jewish body dealing with immigration issues, said the rabbis are “alarmed to see so many politicians declaring their opposition to welcoming refugees.”

Rabbis in 46 states as well as Washington, D.C., are among the signers. A condensed version of the letter and the full list of rabbis who signed on to it will appear in the print editions of Politico and the daily Forward on Thursday.

“Since its founding, the United States has offered refuge and protection to the world’s most vulnerable,” the letter says. “Time and time again, those refugees were Jews. Whether they were fleeing pogroms in Tzarist Russia, the horrors of the Holocaust or persecution in Soviet Russia or Iran, our relatives and friends found safety on these shores.

“Last month’s heartbreaking attacks in Paris and Beirut are being cited as reasons to deny entry to people who are themselves victims of terror. And in those comments, we, as Jewish leaders, see one of the darker moments of our history repeating itself,” the letter continues, citing the U.S. turning away the SS St. Louis in 1939, sending some 900 Jews back to Europe; many were killed by the Nazis.

The letter urges elected officials to support legislation to resettle refugees and oppose any measures that would “actually or effectively halt resettlement or prohibit or restrict funding for any groups of refugees.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.