(JTA) — Some 167 national, state and local Jewish organizations have called on the U.S. government to meet the refugee resettlement admissions goal for this year. The goal for fiscal year 2019 is 30,000, a historically low figure. A letter signed by the organizations was delivered to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Wednesday. The…
(JTA) — Sen. Jeff Merkley quoted Anne Frank extensively in a criticism of the Trump administration’s refugee policy. The Oregon Democrat devoted 23 tweets to an excerpt from the Jewish teenager’s diary, written days before she was discovered in her Amsterdam hiding place by the Nazis and sent to her death in Bergen-Belsen. On Thursday,…
On June 20, World Refugee Day, 500 immigrants, refugees, and employees of immigrant aid organizations gathered to watch the acclaimed off-Broadway Yiddish-language revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” super-titled in Russian and English. Three days earlier, the President had promised that the US would remove “millions of illegal aliens”; two days earlier, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez…
In 1997, novelist and cultural critic Cynthia Ozick wrote an article for the New Yorker criticizing the “distortion” of the historical and literary figure of Anne Frank. “Complicit in this shallowly upbeat view,” she wrote, are two unlikely confederates — Frank’s father Otto, and a promising child actress named Natalie Portman. Portman starred on Broadway…
Question: When is it appropriate to describe a detention center for immigrants as a concentration camp? Meta-question: Millions of Americans, including intellectuals, politicians, and religious leaders, are engaging in this discussion — what does that tell us about America? A fervent, raging discourse on this topic of naming immigrant and refugee detention camps has exploded…
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said it “doesn’t make a difference” whether the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States has been significantly lowered by President Trump. Kushner, whose grandparents arrived in the country after fleeing the Holocaust, shared his views on immigration with “Axios on HBO” on Sunday. He said his…
White House senior advisor Stephen Miller said he would be “happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched America’s soil,” a new tell-all book by a former Trump administration staffer claims. “Team of Vipers,” by former White House communications advisor Cliff Sims, details the infighting and backstabbing that took place between administration officials….
Exchanging money for goods and services can inspire an (albeit brief) dopamine rush. Doing good works feels even better and lasts longer. A UK-based NGO, Help Refugees, decided to combine both. The result? Your head and your heart won’t even know what hit them. Choose Love is a pop-up store in Manhattan. In the style…
