NEW YORK (JTA) — On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump made Mark Hetfield’s job impossible. Hetfield is the president and CEO of HIAS, an organization that resettles refugees in the United States. A week into his presidency, Trump issued an executive order barring refugees from entering the country, leaving Hetfield’s group bereft. Its supporters joined…
I actually felt embarrassed as we headed toward the museum exit. It was my first afternoon with the Kurdish family my congregation is helping to resettle in Westchester. I brought them to the Neuberger museum at SUNY Purchase to show off a great cultural institution and college campus in Westchester County. A campus construction project…
Upon hearing I am a rabbi people often ask, “Who is your congregation?” I respond that I have the privilege of serving the vulnerable. They are my congregation and the people I ultimately hold myself responsible to. Being responsible to the vulnerable means our agency, which helps refugees adapt to America, must walk with our…
Jake Tapper, the fire-spitting CNN reporter and anchor, directed his ire over the weekend at Ivanka Trump, asking the first daughter to square her father’s decision to launch an airstrike on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s air force while refusing to welcome refugees. @IvankaTrump How do you feel about his proposed ban on Syrian refugees from…
When I first met with David Miliband last year at his modest office at the International Rescue Committee’s Manhattan headquarters, the Syrian civil war had not yet reached its fifth anniversary. Donald Trump appeared to have as much chance of winning the White House as the Oxford-educated Miliband had of sounding like a Brooklyn tough….
At my Seder growing up, there would come a moment when everyone would share a memory from leaving Egypt. “I didn’t want to leave my friends,” my older cousin would say. “I was afraid I left the fire burning in the house,” my mom, known for checking our stove before leaving for a trip, joked…
Following its decision to co-sponsor a fundraiser for queer refugees with Jewish Voice for Peace, Ohio State University’s gay Jewish group has been stripped of its organizational status and funding by the campus Hillel. “Hillel made us choose between the LGBTQ community and the Jewish community, but we can’t choose. I’m always going to be…
We do not tend to think of Mordecai as a displaced person, but perhaps we should. His family, we are told, had been exiled from Jerusalem (Esther 2:6) by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Mordecai himself embraces this placelessness. Out of home in the world, the man refuses to come indoors. King Achashverosh cavorts in lavish…
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