Nine Jewish groups back legislation to prevent U.S. immigration ban
Nine Jewish groups are among more than 30 organizations backing a bill that would bar banning entry to the United States on the basis of religion — an initiative sparked by presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslim entry.
“Concerns about national security are mixing with unchecked anti-Muslim bigotry and fomenting unjust fear and scrutiny of Muslim refugees and immigrants,” said the statement released on May 10, a day before Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., was due to unveil the legislation.
“Sadly, that fear has led some to call for a temporary ban on Muslims immigrating to the U.S., to propose dramatically limiting the number of refugees our nation accepts and to pursue a host of policies designed to make life difficult for Muslims in America,” the statement said. “To close our doors to Muslim immigrants and refugees in need would betray both the First Amendment and our nation’s great history as an open and welcoming land.”
Trump is not named in the statement, but he has proposed banning entry to Muslims, including refugees from the civil war in Syria. An array of Jewish groups condemned the proposal when he first made it in December.
The groups joining the call to support Beyer’s bill include umbrella bodies for the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, as well as the Anti-Defamation League, the National Council of Jewish Women, J Street, Habonim Dror, Bend the Arc Jewish Action and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
The statement was organized by Interfaith Alliance, a group directed by Rabbi Jack Moline, and other groups backing the initiative include Muslim, Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies. Also included is the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, a group that backs intergroup dialogue and particularly has promoted Muslim-Jewish encounters. — jta
New Jersey Senate passes anti-BDS bill The
New Jersey Senate unanimously approved a bill that would require the state’s public worker pension fund to divest from companies that boycott Israel.
The Senate passed the legislation on May 9. A similar bill in the state Assembly is in committee.
The bill bars the state Division of Investments from investing the public workers’ $68.6 billion pension fund in any company “that boycotts the goods, products, or businesses of Israel, boycotts those doing business with Israel, or boycotts companies operating in Israel or Israeli-controlled territory.”
It also requires the fund to divest from any companies participating in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel within 18 months of the passage of the legislation.
“The activities of any company solely providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people through either a governmental or non-governmental organization shall not render the company subject to the provisions of this act unless it is also engaging in the prohibited boycotts or otherwise discriminating against goods, products, or businesses of Israel, or entities operating in Israel or Israeli-controlled territory,” the bill reads.
New Jersey trades more than $1.3 billion in goods each year with Israel, according to NewJersey.com.
The state already prohibits the pension fund from investing in businesses with ties to Northern Ireland, Sudan and Iran.
If the Assembly passes the bill, it will go to Gov. Chris Christie for his signature.
Several states have passed anti-BDS legislation, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and South Carolina. In total, 21 states have taken up anti-BDS legislation. — jta
‘Anti-Semitic’ Taft letter on ‘cunning’ Justice Brandeis gets no bids at auction
A letter from former President William Howard Taft attacking the nomination of Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court in thinly veiled anti-Semitic terms may be of historic value, but apparently not $15,000 worth.
That sum was the opening bid set by the Nate D. Sanders auction house in Los Angeles for the 1916 document, but by the April 28 deadline no bids had been received.
Taft’s epistle sheds light on the state of anti-Semitism at the time in “respectable” circles. In his four-page letter on Jan. 21, 1916 to Jewish journalist Gus Karger, Taft labeled Brandeis “cunning,” “a hypocrite,” “unscrupulous” and possessing “much power for evil.”
Although Taft claimed his opposition to Brandeis was based on the latter’s progressive and “socialist” views, Taft’s scurrilous language and constant emphasis on Brandeis’ Jewishness pointed more to a personal outrage at the prospect of a Jew being named, for the first time, to the Supreme Court. Taft had reportedly hoped that President Woodrow Wilson, his successor in the White House, would appoint him to the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Joseph Lamar.
The Senate, after history’s first public hearing on a Supreme Court nomination, confirmed Brandeis by a 42-22 vote and the Jewish judge went on to a long and influential tenure on the court. — jta