As media attention focuses on the question of whether any of the Paris attackers entered Europe as refugees, I offer a few thoughts. First, it is important to recognize there is a risk that a small number of extremists might infiltrate refugee flows. Advocates for generous asylum policies — of which I am one —…
(JTA) — In Buitenveldert, a quiet residential area of the Dutch capital, special forces soldiers are watching over a Jewish school from inside unmarked cars. About half of the Netherlands’ 40,000 Jews live here and in the adjacent suburb of Amstelveen, the only areas of the country with a large and recognizable presence of Jews….
At the end of her Rosh Hashanah sermon, Rabbi Elyse Frishman turned to congregants and asked them to take out their cell phones and start dialing. An unusual scene at the sanctuary, and even more so during a High Holiday service, but Frishman explained that on this day, the cell phone would serve as a…
Now, the crisis cannot be ignored. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are pouring out of strife-torn countries, risking their lives in desperate sea crossings and overland treks, crowding train stations and jamming borders, for the uncertain promise of rescue. How could we not cry out, as human beings, as Americans, as Jews? Every nation’s true…
The kerchief-covered mother, a refugee desperately holding her children, reminds me of my aunt as she desperately held her child, wandering over the ruins of Europe. The refugees begging frantically to board the trains remind me of the relatives I never knew, who boarded trains to their death. For us as Jews, the Holocaust always…
That was some dinner. Good friends, great food. Think I’ll grab this tram and switch to another one in front of the Parliament. OK, here I am on the platform, waiting for my second tram. Midnight. What’s this on the bench? A mother, a sick-looking baby, two children, two men. Obviously Syrians. Oh how sad….
On Sunday, September 6, in the sunny yard of a London school, I met Erica, a weary middle-aged woman from Eritrea whom I was trying to help. Over a Styrofoam cup of milky tea, she described her life—an unrelenting limbo of food vouchers, hand-outs and the unpredictable whim of local neighborhood councils. An asylum seeker,…
The mainstream and Jewish media have both finally raised the world’s refugee crisis to the status it deserves in our news feeds and we, Jewish Americans, cannot help but feel immense sympathy for the Syrian refugees. We want to do whatever we can to help and we should. I have heard of a number of…
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