North Carolina Rabbi Welcomes Immigrants
A rabbi in North Carolina is letting people know — in a big way — about the biblical injunction to welcome the stranger.
Rabbi Eric Solomon of Beth Meyer Synagogue in Raleigh is a member of a Uniting N.C., an interfaith coalition that has put up billboards in support of immigrants.
“Once they’re here, the question for me is not about whether they’re legal, documented, undocumented or illegal. That question is complicated and has its own conversation,” he told the Winston-Salem Journal. “The issue is when they’re here, do we welcome them with the highest values that America and my Torah teaches us in terms of welcome and love of the stranger, that every person is made in God’s image.”
Solomon is joined in the effort by Rev. Diane Faires of St. Paul’s Christian Church and Fiaz Fareez of the Islamic Association of Raleigh. Uniting N.C.’s billboards, which are going up in Raleigh, Durham, Mebane, Charlotte, Asheville and Goldsboro, say “Community: We’ll Get There Together” and “Immigrants Make Us Stronger” and show images of smiling people of different ethnic groups.
Opposition is coming from groups like N.C. Listen, which opposes illegal immigration. Its position is that such billboards are a waste. “I don’t see any widespread support for bashing legal immigrants, so what’s the need for the billboards?” its director, Ron Woodard, said. He did not make any direct reference to the undocumented immigrants — the other kind of “stranger who dwells among you,” about which Solomon is equally concerned.
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
