Is the global refugee crisis a Jewish issue? What does the Torah and Jewish history teach us about migrants, refugees, and others?
The earliest biblical story begins with a fall, a forced migration from Eden to unknown lands, and the stories of wandering of peoples have not ceased since.
Abraham, the forefather to the major monotheistic faiths, was a pious man in search of home. He left his home in Ur, modern Iraq, to follow a divine command to find the Promised Land.
But even before biblical stories and histories were written, our earliest human ancestors roamed the world, wandering in bands of hunters and gatherers, departing out of Africa and spreading over the continents of the globe.
The story of humanity is a story of wandering peoples. And the story of the Israelites and the Jews may exemplify this best.
“You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).
How apt these words seem now, when the news describes refugees being turned away from every border and every country from South America to North America, from Africa to the Middle East, from the Middle East to Europe, from South Asia to East Asia.
Most Jews believe the diaspora began with the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., but in fact, Jews lived in communities throughout the Mediterranean long before then. And the exigencies of history have driven Jews to keep moving.
The Arab and Islamic conquest of the Near East liberated Jews from an uneasy existence under the Byzantine Empire. Only the Christian Crusades of the 12th century forced Jews left in Palestine to seek refuge in Egypt. Some of their prayerbooks and their stories have been preserved for us in the Cairo Genizah.
From Egypt, some of those Jews crossed the Mediterranean to Italy and continued north to France, to the region that would become known as Ashkenaz, or west to Spain, to what became known as Sepharad. The Jews gave familiar biblical names to their new homelands.
The expulsion from Spain drove Jews from Western Europe to Eastern Europe, where they were welcomed warmly by some kingdoms for a time. As in Egypt, success bred resentment and bred persecution.
Within every century and every region, Jews were always on the move, and they weren’t alone. Peoples have always roamed between empires, seeking a peaceful home.
The development of nation states is a phenomenon of the 19th and 20th centuries, giving rise to the erroneous impression that stable borders are natural and inevitable. Borders are not natural or inevitable.
In fact, the invention of nation states gave rise to the so-called “Jewish problem” in the early 20th century. Where did the Jews belong?
The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s answer to that question. And we must not forget that the United States and Great Britain turned away thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing concentration camps and death camps. Boatloads of Jewish refugees almost made it to the shores of pre-state Israel only to be turned away and sent back to certain death.
The refugees from Syria and from Eritrea are now facing a similar fate.
“You shall not oppress a stranger … for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
We were also strangers in the lands of Europe not so long ago.
Jewish values compel us to think seriously about this issue — both as an international crisis and one that we may unknowingly support.
If we are not advocating for the strangers, we are strengthening their oppressors. And as diaspora Jews especially, we know better and we must do more.
“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:34).
To assist refugees
Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief: www.jcdr.org
WJR – World Jewish Relief: www.worldjewishrelief.org
HIAS: www.hias.org
Editor’s note: S.F.-based Jewish Family and Children’s Services has a Syrian refugees assistance fund: www.jfcs.org/?p=4629. Other local funds are being developed.
Mika Ahuvia is chair of Jewish studies at the University of Washington. A longer version of this article was originally published at www. jewishstudies.washington.edu, and appears here with permission of eJewishPhilanthropy.