Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The statue and the message have represented welcome and freedom, opportunity and hope for decades.
Yet our immigrants were not always welcomed. Even though we are a nation of immigrants, almost every group of newcomers has been subjected to distrust, discrimination and violence by people who arrived – as immigrants – only a generation earlier.
The Irish. The Catholics. The Chinese. The Italians. The Haitians. The Somalis. And, of course, the Jews.
Again and again, immigrants have found themselves strangers in the land of the“ free”.
As descendants of a wandering Aramean and of the slaves in Egypt, we know the heart of a stranger. We know what happens when rumors begin, when suspicion changes to scapegoating. Our people bear the scars of accusations of dual loyalty, blood libels and world domination conspiracy theories. Our people suffer from blame for economic collapse, political upheaval, unpopular wars, and even the death of Jesus.
When immigrants are targeted, we know what comes next. No matter the time, no matter the group, no matter our politics, we know the dangers. When any group of immigrants is treated as homogeneous and demonized as being
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