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Jews should be condemning mass deportation, not supporting it

Those who are circulating messages on how to report foreign students need to remember their history

The Jewish community has a long history of being kicked out of various countries, which is why I was surprised to receive a flurry of messages from people I know — and those I don’t know — announcing that I can now report foreign students who support Hamas to ICE.

These messages have also appeared in yeshiva-graduate chat groups.

Some readers from around the world have even contacted me on LinkedIn to “make sure” that I saw this new development. Yes, I responded, I have.

“President Trump has signed an executive order allowing the deportation of foreign students who support Hamas,” one message reads, in case you haven’t received it. “The order instructs those responsible for granting student visas to ensure that applicants are not hostile toward the U.S., its citizens, principles, institutions, or culture, and do not support terrorist organizations.”

The part that shocked me came next.

“Please share this with anyone you know in universities, so they can file complaints about foreign students and faculty members who support Hamas. This website provides details on how to file complaints.” When I clicked, I reached ICE.

I wondered whether this “executive order news” was true. In this era when lies reign, that should be everyone’s first question.

News organizations, it turns out, are playing it safe, and using words like “appears” to describe the situation.

According to ABC News, there is an executive order that “appears to target foreign students who participated in pro-Hamas rallies following the October 7 attack on Israel.” The order calls for the removal of foreign visa holders who “advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”

“Advocate for, aid, and support” covers some of the activity I have seen in intellectual and artistic communities — which, to be frank, disgusted me. It “appears,” to borrow a word from ABC News, to include holding a sign, writing an incendiary poem, and signing a petition that, perhaps, justifies the Oct. 7 attack on Israel as “resistance” — a not-uncommon view in some literary, artistic and academic quarters.

So much has happened over the past few days that it is hard to keep track. But the zeal with which some in the Jewish community are spreading these messages has chilled me.

That’s because, a few weeks ago, I saw my great-grandparents’ deportation order from their home in Germany, signed by Heinrich Himmler. They were given two days to leave.

Of course, innocent Jews kicked out of their homes in 1938 do not equate with students yelling terrifying slogans on college campuses now — and they certainly don’t equate with young men in terror cells plotting destruction.

I feel a responsibility here to say what is likely obvious to anyone who knows me: I do not support Hamas in any way.

As a reporter in Jerusalem, I personally witnessed the aftermath of Hamas attacks; I saw the mangled bodies, the unspeakable damage to human beings that changed my soul. I was there, taking rat-poisoned nails out of an old woman’s thigh in the shuk in Jerusalem.

The idealization of terror, like trying to kill an old woman buying some onions, and the wholesale acceptance of tactics like kidnapping by some in the academic community as “justified resistance” has been one of the many shocks of the past 15 months.

But it’s worth asking what, exactly, should result in deportation — and whether the Jewish community really wants to decide that.

I am deeply worried about the idea of the Jewish community participating in, or worse, spearheading, the deportation of students and faculty, no matter how heinous their views. I keep thinking — who were your grandparents? Who were your great-grandparents?

My grandfather was kicked out of high school for being Jewish. And I know that’s the story of many of my friends’ grandfathers.

As I was parsing my feelings about all of this, I happened to buy fish ‘n’ chips at a restaurant in Manhattan and then walked into a fruit store to buy some mangoes. The clerk said: “Is that falafel in your bag?”

I told him it was fried fish.

He said, “it smells like home.”

I asked him where home was. “Egypt,” he said.

I know what fresh falafel smells like, and he was right — it did smell like home. And I also know that according to Pew Research, 95% of Egyptians hold an unfavorable view of Jews. If I had engaged him in further conversation, would he have said something — to quote the executive order’s language — that would “advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists”?

Possibly.

Just about anyone from Egypt, which borders Gaza, likely has strong views on this war — and on Hamas. But am I qualified to figure out if it’s just talk, or material support, or weapons involvement?

Chances are that this Egyptian clerk was in New York for the same reason many of our grandparents were. To escape home. To survive. To live in freedom. To have a better life, away from the scourge of impossible-to-conquer poverty.

The chance for error is high for reporting on others, whether they are students, faculty, or fruit-store clerks. And while I agree with the slogan on New York City subways on terror — “if you see something, say something” — in this complicated and challenging moment, I hope the Jewish community exercises caution.

I hope we don’t call ICE on someone holding a sign or expressing an opinion — however awful, misguided, and yes, even chilling.

Openly advocating for mass deportation is not the way forward, for American Jews, or for Israel.

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