How long will we be silent?
A 'cruel and ruthless' campaign against immigrants recalls the state-run campaign of persecution in the 1930s that ended in the Shoah. Where are the voices of Orthodox Jews today?
This column was published in The Commentator, a student newspaper at Yeshiva University. It was written before the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Let me paint you a picture:
Masked soldiers conduct arrests with no warrants, based purely on the race or ethnicity of the victims. Said victims are then taken to mysterious facilities where they can be held for days, weeks or months in inhumane conditions with no access to any legal representation. No one who knows them is aware of where they are or what is being done to them.
How long these people have been in the United States does not matter; neither does their criminal record or lack thereof. Their legal status to be in this country also does not count — even a citizen can fall victim. Journalists and protesters are vulnerable as well — the state will do anything to obfuscate and eliminate the truth.
These acts are performed with impunity by the state. We are told they are national security measures necessary to make our nation great again.
This description sounds like it might apply to events in a foreign authoritarian state — North Korea or Russia, perhaps. But it’s happening right here, right now.
Since Donald Trump returned to the presidency last year, his Department of Homeland Security, employing both ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Border Patrol, has been working to achieve his goal of deporting 3,000 illegal immigrants a day, which adds up to over one-million a year.
To achieve this, the DHS has engaged in a cruel and ruthless campaign to capture and deport as many people as they can in whatever way they can. They arrest parents picking up their children from schools, lay in wait at courts for people coming out of mandated immigration appointments, and illegally raid homes without a warrant. Their victims are then detained in gulag-like centers — and they can be moved to new locations in such a manner that they effectively disappear in the system.
Some people are deported to countries from which they left because of great danger, some are deported to countries they aren’t even from — and notably, some have been sent to the notorious El Salvadoran prison CECOT.
• • •
All of this upsets me immensely, but it is not the sole cause of my frustration. What adds to my anger at these injustices is that I am a member of a community toward which a similar series of events was directed in the 1930s and 40s — a state-run campaign of persecution we now refer to collectively as the Holocaust.
We constantly and correctly hold to task those who stood by and let it happen and consider them guilty for ignoring our plight. As Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran theologian, stated with hindsight and regret:
They came for the Jews and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Now, when much the same is occurring to the vulnerable among us, we find ourselves in the same position: silent.
Some of us are ignorant of what is happening, often willfully so, and others are dismissive of claims of injustice. Some are even supportive of the DHS’ extreme measures.
It is imperative for the sake of others and ourselves to speak out and decry the very crimes we once experienced as a community.
• • •
Why does the American Orthodox Jewish community not decry this injustice? Why is it ignored? What benefit is gained by our silence?
Is it because the Trump administration bends slightly more towards our community’s favor on certain issues, and we are willing to sacrifice America’s vulnerable for its promise of security for Israel?
Ignore the fact that the right (which I’ve heard offhandedly referred to as “the party of Torah values”) grows more conspiratorial and antisemitic by the day. Never mind that adopting such an attitude plays into bad faith critics’ “double loyalty” accusations against us.
Take no notice of all those being trampled on, because things are good for us. We are no longer like those immigrants. Besides, we will have Israel, a place to go to in the event that things get bad for us here in America. And all those we stepped on in the process of achieving this security are mere extras in the Jewish narrative.
Being a student at Yeshiva University in the current environment adds insult to injury. Our president, Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman, gave the benediction at President Trump’s second inauguration. Many assume that this places a rabbinic and communal stamp of approval on the administration and its actions.
President Berman has affirmed this assumption to be correct: in several emails, he has praised the administration’s actions concerning Israel. Yet in all other areas, our university has been silent. Its silence, which could be charitably assumed to result from fear of upsetting the administration, suggests agreement.
• • •
Is Torat Adam — the idea that each human has infinite worth and potential — a value we actually live by? Does it apply to the children and parents abducted from schools and soccer games or taken off the streets? Or is it merely a platitude that sounds good during assemblies?
President Berman also recently engaged in efforts to have a dialogue with and emulate other faith-based universities that he sees as our peers. This is in alignment with the rightward-shifting Modern Orthodox community’s embrace of “Judeo-Christian values,” which has increasingly allowed the ideas and rhetoric of the Christo to encroach upon and affect the public view of the Judeo.
Yet even as emulators on this stage we fall short. Pope Leo has called for defending migrants. ICE has gassed and fired upon clergy members praying at the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago. Our supposed peers have the moral clarity to meet this moment. Why have we fallen short?
There is a machloket (argument) over the mantra “Never Again.” One side says it means “Never again will something like the Holocaust happen again to anyone,” while others have it as “Never again will the Jewish People, specifically, be attacked like this.”
It seems our community has chosen the latter. We have chosen universal indifference over universal compassion and thus become the very people we rail against.
• • •
I worry that we will reach the point where our silence becomes our own downfall, where the mechanisms of the state being developed now for unaccountable authority are wielded against us.
Niemöller documented the devastating result of such silence when he said:
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
I am impassioned in my criticism for one reason: I care about my community.
I feel betrayed by its actions and inactions in the present moment, and I worry where such a path might lead in the near future.
Take my words as a plea for action, for courage and for a rededication to the ideals of truth and compassion that are emblazoned on the side of our buildings. Remember what we once were, who we are and what we stand for.
When the vulnerable are attacked, let us be the ones who break the chain and speak up.
Yechiel Amar, a resident of Woodmere, is a senior at Yeshiva University.
Write: Columnist@TheJewishStar.com
