Where have all the (genuine) Evangelicals gone…

~ Walter ~ Leave a comment

One of my favorite songs during the Sixties was Pete Seeger’s “where have all the flowers gone, long time passing….?” I first heard it sung by Joan Baez and fell in love with it instantly. As an alumnus of Oberlin College’s Graduate School of Theology, it made me proud that Pete Seeger sang it first at Oberlin College, one of my alma maters. As we all know this was a protest song against our involvement in the Vietnam War.

Once again we live in a situation when our government engages in activities that are clearly immoral. The quite recent separation of children from their refugee parents at various points at our southern border is, to say it mildly, scandalous. What holier relationship is there than the relationship between parents and their children? This has been violated to the extent that several thousand children have by now been taken away from their parents and placed into fenced-in areas, detention camps, where they live like incarcerated criminals.

Yesterday, Trump, contradicting his most recent declarations about the importance of separating children of refugee parents, cynically echoed by Jeff Sessions, the US Attorney General whose behavior has now FINALLY been censured by the United Methodist Church to which he belongs, reversed himself and by executive order revoked the separation policy. When will the separated children be reunited with their parents? The government ‘s answers are vague.

The separation of children from their refugee parents at the borders is just one of many Trump government activities that are despicable and disgusting that needs to be protested against.

My question is: where are the so-called Christian evangelicals whose mandate is to speak up against immorality in the name of Jesus wherever it occurs? Where are the Jewish leaders in our country who should be speaking up against the violations of biblical values such as lying and bearing false witness?

As it happens now, most of the religious leaders in this country have been remaining silent. What comes to my ears most often is, “Well, we will just have to wait and see what happens.” If we dare to remember what happened in Europe before and during the Nazi years it is that the Jewish voices were silenced by the fences of concentration camps and the murders that took place within those fenced-in areas. And the Christian voices? Sadly enough, most of those jumped on Hitler’s bandwagon and joined in the murderous chorus of so-called German Christianity.

But not all Christian voices remained silent! And it is here that the “Barmen Declaration” needs to be read and its founders and members remembered and praised.

Representatives of the Reformed and Lutheran traditions in Germany met at Barmen in May 1934 and proclaimed a common confession of faith. The occasion for this courageous proclamation was the rise of the Third Reich and German Christianity. The declaration was born in a tense time in the midst of a struggle to maintain morality and decency in Germany. Some have called Barmen a battle cry. While the Barmen Declaration is not a detailed statement of faith, it expresses the one thing that needs to be said at a crucial time to those who claim to be evangelical Christians, “The genuine Christian must listen to Jesus Christ and to Him alone.”

Because I, as a Jew, respect both the Jew Yeshua (the Hebrew name of Jesus) and much of his teaching simply because it is to a great extent genuinely Jewish teaching once it is filtered through the net separating his genuine words from those the nascent Christian faith in a polemical spirit put into his mouth after his death, I feel very strongly that now is the time for the churches and synagogues to speak up and set the record straight. It is high time to state unequivocally that lying is wrong, racism and antisemitism to be condemned, misogyny to be made away with, name calling and insulting of others who disagree with one, to be ended. The list is too long and this is not the place to enumerate in detail the president’s shameful behavior and our present government’s despicable attitudes.

While this is a pluralistic country and many of us are not affiliated with any religion we should be able to agree that the ugly attitudes enumerated above, while to be condemned by both Christianity and Judaism, are also among the unacceptable and deplorable attitudes in the moral sphere of secular humanists and in the minds of ordinary decent people.

For lack of space, let me indicate here just one excerpt from Article 4 which makes it clear how far the genuine evangelical church of Germany went at Barmen: “We repudiate the false teaching that the church can and may, apart from its ministry, set up special leaders [Fuehrer] equipped with powers to rule.“ When one realizes that the German Christians not only remained silent during Hitler’s murderous rule but even expressed their adoration for him, the above cited text represents a slap to Hitler’s face whose title was the Fuehrer.

For the Barmen Declaration and other anti-Nazi literature circulated, for courageous sermons and truly evangelical leadership many members of the so-called Bekennende Kirche or German “Witnessing Church” paid with their lives. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of these heroes.

In recognition of such bravery, I can only say kol hakavod! “All due honor!”

So then, “Where have all our evangelicals gone, long time passing?” in this country and at this time?

Forcing family breakup: the new American way?

~ Walter ~ Leave a comment

The 18th century great Jewish German poet Heinrich Heine once wrote, Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, da bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht. This translates into English as, “Whenever I think of Germany by night, I can no longer sleep.” A prophetic utterance of one who lived some 200 +years before the Holocaust took place.

I feel the same way when, during the last one and a half years, I have been considering what has been happening to my country, the United States of America. By “making America great again,” Donald Trump’s slogan prior and after his election to the presidency, the president has actually “made America great-ly” impoverished and reduced in morality, generosity and spirit, a deep concern which often deprives me of my sleep.

Just about after every lecture dealing with my experiences during the Holocaust, someone in the audience asks me which of these experiences I consider to have been the most horrific. Hard to say when the entire three years were a veritable hell. “Were you afraid of death?” – another person inquires. Every daily roll call may have sent me into the gas of Auschwitz or the shooting wall at Gross Rosen where prisoners no longer able to work were machine gunned and cremated. With our increasing dehumanization and deterioration in body and spirit, fear of death was replaced by hunger. This was an ongoing process, eventually leading to destruction of us who had become non-thinking zombies..

So was there a most terrifying moment in my life? The answer is Yes.

The date was June 29, 1942 when our family was torn apart. Driven from the ghetto into a junkyard by the SS, we were forced to hand over any valuables still in our possession. Gold necklaces, coins, wedding rings, watches, – all these were confiscated. There was intimidation by shouted threats and beatings. For a boy of fifteen that I was this was terribly scary.

But then came something even worse: separation. Women and men were separated into groups. My Mom was ripped from my Dad’s side. And I was ripped away from both my parents and my older sister. Never had I been – had I lived apart from my beloved parents who, from the day of my birth, had taken care of me, nurtured me with unending expressions of love. Words cannot express the feeling of abandonment and lostness and – yes, of fear, I experienced in that moment.

If I feel so terribly hurt to this day, even in retrospect, I cannot even imagine what my parents felt and went through on that acursed day. As my thoughts return to that utterly obscene event, I can still see my Mom weeping. with a face distorted with anguish, running behind me and calling to me, “Walti, Walti, do not leave us!” An SS soldier barring her way toward me, hit her on the head with his leather whip shouting, “Enough of that! Back to your group!” A rough shove did the rest. No longer were we together as a family. All four of us must have realized that a big question mark would from now on hang over our existence. Would we ever see each other again?

Daily, the question of illegal immigration is played out before our eyes these days. It seems that president Trump and his acolyte Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, are consumed with hatred for undocumented immigrants. For months we have been hearing unending litanies concerning the threat undocumented refugee immigration represents for our country and population.

Doctors Without Borders, the fabulous worldwide medical organization whom I admire and support, announced yesterday that new Asylum Restrictions issued by Mr. Sessions, the Attorney General and head of the Justice Department, are a death sentence for Central Americans fleeing deadly violence in their countries. Citizens of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador will from now on no longer be able to use domestic or gang violence as acceptable justification for seeking asylum in the US.

We, a country consisting entirely of immigrants, with the exception of America’s Native Nations, are closing the gates to refugees fleeing for their lives hoping to find a safe haven in our country . Having come to our southern border and seeking asylum, they will be turned away.

Since last October,700 children of parents who came here many years ago as undocumented immigrants have been forcibly separated from their parents who were deported to their country of origin and we are told that 1,500 children, thus separated under duress from their parents and sent “somewhere,” cannot be found.

I hope you see the connection between my story above and what has been happening here. Have our legislators become non-thinking and non-feeling men and women? Do they not have children? Do they not love their children? If threatened by conditions of death, would they not seek asylum in a neighboring country?

What is happening to us Americans? Can we still claim to be “the Land of the free and the home of the brave?” after this kind of sham perpetrated by our government? Have we become great under Trump or have we, thanks to him, become great-ly diminished as compassionate human beings?

Concern for our country and where we are headed under this government, keeps me awake during many a night.

Abraham in Interfaith Dialogue

~ Walter ~ 1 Comment

A few days ago I ran into an acquaintance with whom I had a brief conversation about interfaith dialogue. In the course of our conversation he used the term “Abrahamic religions.” At other times I have also heard the phrase “the Abrahamic faiths” referring to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Having been involved in interfaith conversations myself, these phrase trigger in me a number of thoughts. I do not know the origin of their usage but their meaning is clear enough as they points to Judaism, Christianity and Islam being sibling religions, as it were. In Judaism, Christianity and in Islam Abraham occupies a key position and so suggests a basic commonality between them.

This commonality is generally seen as something positive in as much as it holds the potential for interfaith respect at a minimum, and a feeling of religious brother-and sisterhood at best. It suggests the possibility if not a mandate for peaceful coexistence and cooperation in our common need to confront all kinds of dangers we humans face. Sadly enough, the opposite has been taking place as the three religions oppose, denigrate and fight each other.

Contrary to many folks’ expectations, the religions that claim common origins are precisely the ones that are in tension with each other. Islam, the youngest among the three, belittles and attacks both Christianity and Judaism in the Qur’an, its holy book, as religions who tampered with the original holy texts given to them by God Allah (Sura 3:81-56). There are Qur’anic texts that warn Muslims from having social relationships with practitioners of Judaism and Christianity… The New Testament, especially in its gospel of John, is stridently anti-Jewish… Judaism, in some of its holy scriptures ridicules other ancient Near Eastern religions as examples of gross superstitions. In the Hebrew Bible there is no criticism of either Christianity or of Islam for the simple reason that neither Christianity nor Islam existed prior to the 1st cent. CE, i.e., before Christianity and later Islam came into existence. However in the post-biblical Jewish rabbinical literature we do find statements slanderous of Jesus and Christianity.

In this connection it is worth observing that no animosity exists between Judaism and say Hinduism whose respective sacred texts hold nothing in common. The same is true for Christianity and its relationship say to Confucianism. No animosity there either. So also Islam, to my knowledge, has no quarrel with Buddhism, etc. O n the other hand within Islam itself we find deadly animosity between the Shia and the Sunni movements, both of which claim Islam as their religious legacy and fight each other in the name of Allah.

Let me then restate here that it is precisely religions that claim common origins that are the ones that are in conflict with each other because their interpretations of these common origins vary from each other. The newer interpretations often segue into formation of sects and into new religions that claim to be correctives to previous expressions, take on new names and announce to the world ultimate truths only they hold. These latest revelations from divinity become ultimate authority trying to eclipse precedent expressions of faith by means of missionary teaching or worse, violent conflict.

How does the personage of Abraham relate to all this?

In Judaism, which is not a monolithic religion, Abraham is often claimed as its founder. I would rather vote for Moses and the Exodus from Egypt as the founding experience of Judaism. There are Jews who see in Abraham the founder of monotheism. He is one of the three patriarchs (with Isaac and Jacob) or eponymous ancestors of the religion. He is the role model of the person who obediently carries out God’s instructions. His obedience goes so far as being willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac to God. He lives according to God’s laws by faith before the Torah is given to Moses on Mount Sinai. He is the first to practice circumcision. It is to him and his progeny that God promises possession of what is commonly called the Holy Land. Because of Abraham’s merits, God grants to the people Israel and to its later expression, the Jewish people, his covenant or special relationship with him and so also the promised land. There are other promises too numerous to mention here.

In Christianity, which is not a monolithic religion either, Abraham is seen as the role model of human faith and obedience to God. In that sense he is the prefiguration par excellence of Jesus, the Christ. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac is proleptic of God’s subsequent willingness to give His son Jesus as a sacrifice for the redemption of humankind. And Isaac, Judaism’s second patriarch who according to the biblical text is willing to be sacrificed, foreshadows Jesus’ willingness to die on the cross for the salvation of humanity. Thus, according to Christianity (cf. the apostle Paul’s writing), the Abraham story foreshadows its actualization in Jesus Christ. Actualization is, of course, of greater value than mere prophecy! Given this Christian valuation, Christianity and the Christian people supercede and displace Judaism and Jews from their special relationship to God. The covenant with the Jews is annulled and instead, established with the Christian Church, i.e., the Christian people.

In Islam, which is not a monolithic religion either, Abraham is the believer par excellence who obeys God Allah. The term Islam means submission and Muslims are the people who in following Allah’s word in the holy book called the Qur’an (or recitation) submit to the divinity. In Muslim theology, Abraham, in Arabic Ibrahim, is the first who submits to Allah’s word and so, here also, is the role model for what it means to live in submission or surrender to God. Also, however,  Abraham, or rather Ibrahim, in Islam’s teaching is thus the first Muslim, having totally surrendered to Allah’s will. Whereas in Judaism it is Abraham’s son Isaac who was to be sacrificed, in Islam it is Abraham’s and Sarah’s older son Ishmael (in Arabic, Ismail) who was to die and so, by submitting to be sacrificed, Ishmael becomes the eponymous ancestor of Muslims. Ibrahim and Ishmael built the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, in the city of Mecca. Jerusalem is the place from where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven after his Night Journey from Mecca and thus the Dome of the Rock, from where the prophet ascended and the nearby al-Aqsa mosque are the third holiest shrines for Muslims, the second holiest site being the al-Masjid an-Nabawi (Mosque of the Prophet) in the city of Medina. Because it is Allah’s word in the Qur’an, transmitted to humanity by the prophet Muhammad, it is by virtue of these words being the latest divine revelation, that the Qur’an displaces both the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) and the Christian New Testament. According to Muslim scholars, the Qur’an corrects both the Jewish and Christian Holy Scriptures where they had been tampered with and so restores the antecedent original revelations from God.

These three sets of religious affirmations, all three claiming to have issued from the God of the Hebrew Bible and the Jews, the trinitarian God of the New Testament and the Christians, and from Allah, the Qur’an’s God of Islam and the Muslims, respectively, do not agree with one another. In the minds of each of these religions’ literalist readers and practitioners, their God and their scripture calls for unquestioning acceptance and adherence. Figurative and/or metaphorical exegesis of holy book texts are not permitted. In that kind of religious fundamentalism it is “we” (believers) against “them” (unbelievers). Every reading and sermon of these divisive texts underlines and perpetuates separation and superiority, two disturbing and destructive attitudes.

Returning now to modern interfaith dialogue, it is my contention that problems of this kind, rather than to be swept under the rug, must be honestly confronted and discussed, before lasting improvement in interfaith relations can be achieved through inter-faith conversations. I do not believe that sitting around a campfire, holding hands and singing “kumbaya, my lord” will get us anywhere.

The regular reading in mosque, church, synagogue or at home of these divisive texts perpetuate misunderstanding and mutual alienation. Only the honest facing of the divisive texts, their learned study and discussion which involves historical context, perhaps even their elimination altogether or, at the least, critical annotation in Bibles, New Testaments and Qur’ans, will advance mutual respect and rapprochement. Perhaps I am asking for the impossible.

This said, I recommend the teaching of the great Rabbi Tarfon (1st to 2nd cent. CE), “It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either,” (Babylonian Talmud, Avot 2:21).

Congratulations are due to those interfaith groups who are courageous and dedicated enough to undertake that difficult and risky task.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: an analogy for today

~ Walter ~ 2 Comments

I REMEMBER!

I cannot say too often how very fortunate and blessed I am to have had wonderful parents. My father, the excellent educator that he was, often read to my sister and me appropriate works he considered important for a child to hear and to discuss. One of these was Der Zauberlehrling by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, in all probability the greatest German writer and poet of all times. The poem’s English translation is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” A film version of the poem was made by Walt Disney and may have appeared in the Hollywood film Fantasia many years ago. The text of the poem both in German and English is available through Google and I recommend you read it.

Short summary of the poem: The sorcerer leaves his house. His apprentice (notice the same word as in the recent TV show The Apprentice, created by Donald Trump), is now in charge. This being a fine opportunity to test his learned mastery of the trade, he wastes no time to do so. Wishing to take a bath in absence of his master, he uses a magic formula to transform an old broom into a servant with head, arms and legs, and bids the broom to fetch water from a nearby stream and pour it into the tub. No faster said than done. The broom does its work but, alas, only too well. Without stopping, more and more water arrives, fills not only the tub but all containers and when these are filled the water overflows into the house. With no end in sight to the ever increasing inundation, and various attempts to stop the broom, the helpless and desperate apprentice takes an ax and cuts the broom in half to make an end to the disaster. Alas, to his horror, there are now two broom-servants and the action is multiplied. Unsuccessfully, he tries to recall the magical formula that is needed to undo his sorcery run amok. Screaming for the return of his master, the latter arrives. With the simple words, “Into the corner, broom, broom; be what you were before!” the disaster stops.

As is the case with ancient poems and ballads or even children’s rhymes such as for instance with “Humpty, Dumpty” by Mother Goose, the innocent sounding lines carry a political message.

Because I am fascinated by analogies, this poem speaks to me with regard to our political situation today. The poem warns against overestimation of self which we encounter in the daily tweets of our president. The transparency of these tweets points to the man’s egomania and megalomania which might very well stem from his insecurity and his constant need to be reassured that he truly is “the stable genius” he has called himself. The poem suggests a situation where a person summons helpers to be his allies whom often he is unable to control which is especially true in the field of politics.

Goethe, the poem’s creator, also points to the danger of humanity’s illusion that power is stronger than wisdom and that one’s intoxication with power leads to out of control situations and chaos. The poem further suggests that return to the original order can save the chaotic situation that leads to disaster.

Can we learn anything from this poem? I think we can, perhaps with another analogy. I just learned that a sinkhole developed on the grounds next to the White House. Might this not suggest that now would be a good time for the “swamp” next doors to be “drained,” an expression coined by Mr. Trump. A self-fulfilling prophecy by our president?

When fear takes over

~ Walter ~ 2 Comments

I Remember!

My sweet grandmother on my Mom’s side, Hermine Borger, nee Weinberger, had two brothers, Solomon whom I hardly knew and Arnold, whom we all knew very well. Arnold was a big strapping fellow and I remember him best from his powerful smacking the cards onto the table during the traditional Sunday afternoon card games at my grandparents’ home on the Polish side of our town.

Uncle, or rather grand uncle Arnold owned a bakery in an area close to the Czech elementary school I attended. Every so often my mother picked me up from school and we visited the bakery. Freshly baked kaizer rolls were absolutely delicious when topped with butter and a slice of cooked ham from a butcher shop nearby.

The German occupation of our town on September 1, 1939, spelled the end to uncle Arnold’s bakery and our snacks there. A Volksdeutscher, a local German Nazi, took over the business. As simple as that.

When my father was forced to head the Jewish representation vis a vis the GESTAPO he selected uncle Arnold to be one of its members to work with him in what was called the Judenrat.

Perhaps as early as in 1940 it became clear that one of the most important priorities for the Jewish communities in Nazi occupied Poland was to save Jewish young children for whom the Nazis had no use and thus, given their vulnerability, were threatened with elimination.

Moshe Merin, a Jewish man from the city of Sosnowitz who by the GESTAPO was tapped to oversee all things Jewish in occupied Polish Silesia which included our territory, was well aware of the danger in which the Jewish children found themselves, turned to my father to come up with a plan to bring these little ones to safety.

In short, it was decided to organize an exodus of children from the threatened areas by bringing them to our town and then, guided by people who knew the way into Slovakia via a mountain pass, and onward south to the river Danube and the Black Sea and from there to a Mediterranean port, from where they would be shipped to Palestine and safety.

Given the complexity of the operation of transfering the children once arrived in our area to a mountain guide who would take them into Slovakia, my father delegated the organization and supervision of the operation to my uncle Arnold, member of the Judenrat who did this clandestine job well. While I do not know the numbers of kids involved in these secret transfers, I do know that dozens of children were saved in this manner.

Then, one day, the GESTAPO arrested uncle Arnold. Someone must have turned traitor. The operation suddenly ground to a halt. I need not go into details to describe the fear that took hold of us all. We knew where, in all probability, Arnold was held by the Nazi police. Today, a bronze plaque on one of our town buildings commemorates the horrors of the place:

“In this building, in the years 1939-1945 the GESTAPO had its office and torture chambers in which died hundreds of honorable nationals from both sides of the Olza river.”

The waiting game now began. When and what will the inevitable sequel to Arnold’s arrest be? The when was a realistic question whereas to the what we all knew the answer: wholesale punishment of the Jewish population. This could amount to a police dragnet of arrests, deportation or immediate total destruction. The days dragged on. Every time the door bell rang, we anticipated the worse. My father’s pride and joy was his gold Schaffhausen pocket watch, a veritable chronograph that kept the time within two or three seconds of the noon time signal broadcast by many European radio stations. When the door bell rang the tradition had become for my father to hand to my Mom the gold watch and to place a kiss on her forehead, followed by kisses given to Edith and me on our heads. Only after having done this, my father went down to open the house entrance to whoever the visitor was. A truly chilling tradition!

During those waiting days grand-aunt Else, wife of imprisoned Arnold, regularly came to visit. We heard her arguing with my father behind closed doors, asking him, imploring him for advice as to what to do in this calamitous time. Again and again she begged that he intervene with the GESTAPO and demand the release of her husband. Clearly my father could not do so. Jews had become outlaws and making oneself a nuisance with the Nazis, as they saw it, brought about very dangerous repercussions which made the situation only worse. And so unbearable waiting times and hushed conversations continued and we expected the worst.

Five weeks into this misery Else visited with my father once again but this time what in the past had been requests for help, turned into threats. We noticed upon her arrival that her physical appearance had significantly deteriorated. She had lost a lot of weight, her usually kind facial expression had turned severe and tears had turned into frowns. We heard her scream,

“Leo, if you do not make it clear to the GESTAPO that it is you who are the responsible person who delegated the children’s operation to Arnold, I will go down there and make this clear to them myself. It is you who are responsible for the operation and not Arnold. Only such an admission by you will save my husband. Consider this an ultimatum! And make it quick because I will not wait any longer!”

This time she did not wait for a response from my father. Slamming the doors behind her she stalked out.

The next few days were pure hell. My father seriously considered requesting the local GESTAPO chief, a certain SS Hauptsturmfuhrer (captain) Schweim, for the release of uncle Arnold. My Mom, of course, begged him not to do it. In retrospect I am certain she was right. Suddenly there was tension in our home between father and mother and both Edith and I were distraught. This sort of thing had never occurred before.

And then it happened: uncle Arnold was released. He had not been tortured.

Peace returned to our family but the prior happy relationship with aunt Else was never quite restored.

Why am I telling this story?

To convey to you how one’s psyche can be impacted by fear and how this fear can change one’s basic orientations, relationships and even world view. In our case, Else had been a loved and esteemed member of our family. Fear had distorted her friendship and love to the extent that she was now ready to jeopardize the very life of my father in an effort to save her husband. Love had turned into hatred. The good that had been accomplished by saving the lives of a large numbers of children thanks to the work of Else’s husband had receded into the past. To save her husband, the blame for the transgression of Nazi law had to be pinned on someone else although by doing so that person would receive a death sentence.

I cannot help but see a parallel between the story I related and on a much vaster scale the political situation in our land and more specifically the fear mongering that is done by president Trump to which our population is exposed almost daily.

Surely, you remember the case of the DACA young people who still are in limbo, with the protective legislation by former President Obama revoked. Surely you remember the attempt to instill fear in us by Trump’s reporting about the “caravan” of thousands of Latin Americans marching to our southern border. The already existing border patrols had to be reinforced by thousands of military and police personnel to protect us. The rape accusations against these poor people were again resurrected and our president, protector of women par excellence (wow!), continues alternately to plea with and threaten Congress into financing the billions necessary for the building of his promised wall that would put an end to the dangerous illegal immigrant incursions from the south. As it turned out, a “caravan” of about 200 people showed up at the wall, mostly women and children, fleeing from terrible situations in their own countries.

From a report received earlier today (5/4/2018) I learned that the Trump administration is now ending temporary protected status for tens of thousands of Hondurans. Since last year the US administration has scrapped similar protections from immigrants that were allowed to stay in the US since 1999, following a hurricane that ravaged their country. The Trump administration has scrapped similar protections for immigrants from other countries, including Nepal, El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua. These immigrants holding temporary legality in the US who would love to remain here have had children here, worked hard, started companies, made investments, etc. Now they don’t know what will happen. More limbo for people who in desperation sought and received asylum in this country which is now being revoked for no good reason, other than…!

Here is what I am worried about. Based on my lived experience in Nazi Germany I know that falsehoods and lies when heard long enough sink in and their toxicity is absorbed. The lies spread by the Nazis concerning the Jews took deep root and in some quarters remain alive to this day. Will we, a population consisting of immigrants and children of immigrants have the strength to resist infection by the avalanche of fearmongering and lies coming from our president and his surrounding, or will this spreading of fear negatively affect our country’s long held generally favorable attitude toward strangers, immigrants, refugees and empathy for others’ suffering even though these “others” do not belong to our tribe? It is my hope that we will overcome xenophobia because, yes, we can.

Our Jewish tradition cherishes a text attributed to 18th cent. rabbi Nachman of Breslov which reads, “kol ha-olam kulo gesher tsar me’od, veha-ikar lo lefached klal,” or in translation, “The hole world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is not to be afraid at all.” If you want to hear it beautifully sung, Google it, and listen to Ofra Haza sing it on YouTube. It may give you courage as it does me, every time I hear it and sing along.