Refugees
Crossposted from Facebook (and back again, 'cause why not?):
It's true that I'm Jewish (and Episcopalian, and Pagan), and it's true that as a Jew, I can trace my roots to a nomadic people of the middle east living many thousands of years ago.
But my people, my *immediate* family, were refugees much more recently than that. Every time I see someone in FaceBookland ranting against refugees or Muslims, all I read is, "PK, I wish you were never born. I wish your grandparents and great-grandparents had died in the camps."
My great-grandparents were all born in Eastern Europe: some in Poland, some in Austria, some in Romania. They were all incredibly lucky, that they felt the tide turning. After WWI, the Jews were scapegoated for, well, everything wrong. Not just in Germany, but all over Europe, particularly badly in Eastern Europe. Every angry thing said these days about Muslims and Syrian refugees was said about the Jews, back then. Before being forced to wear yellow stars, before their businesses were taken from them, they were spit at, cursed, glared at, refused service to.
You know, just like some Americans are treating Muslims and Syrian refugees.
Luckily, my great-grandparents got out then, before the borders closed, before boatloads of desperate Jews were turned away from Ellis Island. They had a hard life here. One great-grandfather had been a Torah scribe in Poland, a highly revered and skilled position that paid well. As it should! If you make a single mistake, a single drop of ink or bad stroke on a Torah, you have to start all over again. When he came here, he didn't have the connections to continue his trade, so he became a ragpicker. We'd call it a dumpster diver these days, the people who take stuff out of dumpsters and sell it on eBay. This great scribe spent his days driving a cart around, selling what he could find that others had tossed.
It was the farthest thing from a glamorous life, but there was no going back. Home meant the discriminations and ghettoization that Trump speaks dreamily about- and then it meant a train trip in a cattle car, grueling toil and death in the concentration camps.
I don't have family in "the old country". I have specks of ash in huge piles in the camps. The brothers and sisters and cousins and parents and uncles and aunts who didn't make it out of Eastern Europe all died there.
I am stunned and horrified to watch it happen again. To see people confuse innocents running from ISIS with ISIS members. To see members of a religion- not some alien religion either, but one that shares roots with both Judaism and Christianity- be confused with terrorists. The terrorists make up a tiny radical fringe element of Muslim, like the Westboro Baptist Church to Christianity as a whole. (Red State is an excellent movie about the concept of an angry church like WBC becoming violent.)
Refugees are innocents. Refugees are desperate enough to leave all that they've known to find something better for their children. Stop demonizing refugees and Muslims, please. If for nothing else, for me- the great-grandchild of refugees who were persecuted for their religion.
Thank you.
It's true that I'm Jewish (and Episcopalian, and Pagan), and it's true that as a Jew, I can trace my roots to a nomadic people of the middle east living many thousands of years ago.
But my people, my *immediate* family, were refugees much more recently than that. Every time I see someone in FaceBookland ranting against refugees or Muslims, all I read is, "PK, I wish you were never born. I wish your grandparents and great-grandparents had died in the camps."
My great-grandparents were all born in Eastern Europe: some in Poland, some in Austria, some in Romania. They were all incredibly lucky, that they felt the tide turning. After WWI, the Jews were scapegoated for, well, everything wrong. Not just in Germany, but all over Europe, particularly badly in Eastern Europe. Every angry thing said these days about Muslims and Syrian refugees was said about the Jews, back then. Before being forced to wear yellow stars, before their businesses were taken from them, they were spit at, cursed, glared at, refused service to.
You know, just like some Americans are treating Muslims and Syrian refugees.
Luckily, my great-grandparents got out then, before the borders closed, before boatloads of desperate Jews were turned away from Ellis Island. They had a hard life here. One great-grandfather had been a Torah scribe in Poland, a highly revered and skilled position that paid well. As it should! If you make a single mistake, a single drop of ink or bad stroke on a Torah, you have to start all over again. When he came here, he didn't have the connections to continue his trade, so he became a ragpicker. We'd call it a dumpster diver these days, the people who take stuff out of dumpsters and sell it on eBay. This great scribe spent his days driving a cart around, selling what he could find that others had tossed.
It was the farthest thing from a glamorous life, but there was no going back. Home meant the discriminations and ghettoization that Trump speaks dreamily about- and then it meant a train trip in a cattle car, grueling toil and death in the concentration camps.
I don't have family in "the old country". I have specks of ash in huge piles in the camps. The brothers and sisters and cousins and parents and uncles and aunts who didn't make it out of Eastern Europe all died there.
I am stunned and horrified to watch it happen again. To see people confuse innocents running from ISIS with ISIS members. To see members of a religion- not some alien religion either, but one that shares roots with both Judaism and Christianity- be confused with terrorists. The terrorists make up a tiny radical fringe element of Muslim, like the Westboro Baptist Church to Christianity as a whole. (Red State is an excellent movie about the concept of an angry church like WBC becoming violent.)
Refugees are innocents. Refugees are desperate enough to leave all that they've known to find something better for their children. Stop demonizing refugees and Muslims, please. If for nothing else, for me- the great-grandchild of refugees who were persecuted for their religion.
Thank you.