Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Calvin Frank Bar Mitzvah
November 9, 2002
Shabbat Toldot
Isaac and Fellow Immigrants
Most of us here today were born in America, so it is easy to forget the remarkable combination of courage, vision and sacrifice that it takes to move to a new place surrounded by a foreign culture, language and expectations. I’m afraid it is too easy for those of us whose ancestors showed such pluck to look with scorn upon today’s immigrants – those brave souls who most resemble our grandparents and great-grandparents – and to see them as threatening our way of life and our jobs, just as earlier Americans viewed our families when they first arrived here.
Calvin read to us an incident which portrays one of our People’s earliest ancestors as an undesired alien. Our patriarch Isaac was blamed for being industrious and prosperous and expelled by the anti-immigrant bigots of his day. During a period of famine, Isaac moved his family to Gerar, a region inhabited by the Philistines and their king, Avimelech. In his new land, like so many other immigrants, Isaac turned to agricultural work to support himself and his loved ones. The Torah records that: “Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year.” (Genesis 26:12) Isaac’s willingness to work so hard, perhaps at jobs which the Philistines considered beneath their dignity, earned him only the jealousy and animosity of the surrounding people. The Torah says: “The man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy: he acquired flocks and herds and a large household so that the Philistines envied him.” (Genesis 26:13-14)
How did the Philistines respond to Isaac’s willingness to accept back-breaking labor and his devotion to his family and his People? By trying to cut off his access to the bounty of the region. “The Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug, filling them with earth.” Apparently only the native-born Philistines were entitled to the basic necessities of life; the immigrant Isaac would have to do without.
Ultimately their attempt to deprive Isaac of all social support was but the first step in a campaign whose ultimate goal was expulsion. After cutting off his water, the Philistines finally command Isaac: “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.” (Genesis 26:16)
Feeling threatened by the new immigrant, the Philistines ultimately were content only with his banishment. Rather than respond to his industry by working harder themselves, rather than seeing his presence in their midst as another source of skill and strengthening of community, the Philistines preferred to blame Isaac for his admirable drive and diligence and to see him as a threat to their own existence.
The Philistines of antiquity were not alone in their willingness to blame their own problems on the newcomer. The wonderfully renovated exhibits at Ellis Island, where most Jewish immigrants entered America’s shores, testify to the continuing appeal of xenophobia – the dislike of the unlike – as a recurrent pattern in American political life. Unscrupulous politicians tried to distract voters from their own failings and ride to victory by appealing to the fears and bigotry of the electorate.
From 1880 to the mid-1920's, a wave of immigrants came to the United States. The largest group came from Italy, and the second largest were the Jews of Eastern Europe. In response to the swelling immigration, nativists launched a campaign to close America’s borders to any newcomers who threatened to “dilute America’s purity.” Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan sponsored speakers and marches to protest that these new immigrants were taking America away from the true Americans, were stealing jobs, contributing to the crime rate, and degrading American culture. The primary targets of this inflammatory rhetoric were Jews, African-Americans, Asians and Catholics.
While there were some brave leaders who stood up for the immigrants, the United States Congress ultimately closed off immigration, dooming millions of our relatives to lives of poverty, fear and suffering in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Ultimately, many of those Jews and their children were murdered in the Nazi death camps.
I remind you of these facts because America is experiencing another influx of immigrants, and not all of our citizens are happy about that fact. We are in the midst of a new wave of immigration which is the largest in a century and more diverse than any in our nation’s history. Immigrants are arriving in this country at the rate of one million a year, now not mostly from Europe but from Third World nations – from Asia and the vast Hispanic world. The impact of these new immigrants is literally remaking America.
A few years ago, Time Magazine published a special issue called “The New Face of America.” Today, largely because of immigration, there is no majority race in Hawaii or Houston or New York City, and there will be no majority race in California – the nation’s most populous state – very shortly. By the middle of this 21st century there will be no majority race in the United States period. No other nation in history has gone through demographic change of this magnitude.
We have left behind the time when the non-white, non-western part of our population could be expected to assimilate to the dominant majority. In the future, the white, western majority will have to do some assimilation of its own, and that prospect hardly pleases everyone. There are some who are worried about over-population and a threatened environment. Many are alarmed by a projection that if the immigrant tide continues, the United States population will rise to almost 400 million by the middle of this century. Our sluggish American economy, accompanied by growing unemployment now, makes aliens once again appear a threat to jobs. In particular, the growth of illegal immigration and the government’s inability to stanch the flow are a constant irritant to some Americans. Normally tolerant Americans succumb to complaints about the newcomers’ contribution to crime and disease, about the burdens on schools and welfare rolls.
What I think we need is to learn from history. In preparing for this sermon, I came across a remarkable article which I want to share with you. I don’t know if anybody here remembers Congressman Martin Dies. He was the Chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee before Senator Joseph McCarthy. Dies once boasted that if Congress let him have his way, he would deport seven million aliens. When he said that, the old New York Post published this column by Ernest Meyer on October 12, 1940. It is titled A Land Without Aliens.
Now it happened that Martin Dies rubbed the magic lamp, and the genie appeared, and the genie said, “What is thy will, master?”
And Martin Dies answered, “It is my will that straightway, all the aliens in America be exiled to some distant and most inhospitable spot, and there do sufferance for their sins.”
And the genie said, “Truly I can grant thy wish, master, but there is a law in my land which says that whosoever is sent into exile shall be allowed to take with him whatever he has created by his own efforts. This, I think , is a just law, and if you abide by it, I can grant your desire.”
And Martin Dies said, “Indeed, your law is quite just. Let the aliens be deported, and let them take with them what they have created, for surely they have fashioned nothing but dissent and plots and radical heresies and sins and sabotage, and to these, they are welcome.”
And the genie said, “So be it, master.” And he uttered a few words of strange power, and a miracle happened.
It followed in that very instant that a vast fleet of barges and boats was fashioned, and into them, millions upon millions, flocked the aliens, and they took with them what they had created in America.
They took with them highways hewn out of the wilderness by Sicilians and Slavs, and great rafts of lumber felled in the forests by the Irish, Swedes and Norwegians, and many millions of square miles of earth made fertile by the Germans, the Danes and the Dutch, and billions of garments woven by the Jews, and mountainous masses of coal and iron and copper dug from the pits by Italians and Finns and Poles, and whole cities of skyscrapers and subways and railroads and mills and marts wrought by the sinews of many aliens from the earth’s four quarters.
And they took with them also their alien culture, their music and their songs, their languages and their literature, their books and their bibles and their cookery, their piety and their passions, their ideals and philosophy and folk dances and fun which had been woven into the rich and multi-colored fabric of America.
Now all this happened when the genie granted the wish of Martin Dies, when the aliens left with all their works, and a great want followed, and a great and strange silence. And in that silence, there was naught to be heard save the frightened whimpering of Martin Dies crying, “Genie, genie!” But there was no answer, for the genie, an alien, was on one of the boats to Baghdad, and after that, there was nothing and the night.
Though written many years ago, that column still conveys a valid truth. Until very recently, Germany had the most liberal immigration policy in Europe. But the German Parliament voted to close the doors because of the violence against Turks and others. The German Parliament surrendered to pressure from the skinheads and others who wanted to keep the land pure of immigrants. Many other countries in Europe are considering doing the same thing.
Let us remember that there was a time when people said about us Jews that which we are so often tempted to say about today’s immigrants to this land. Some people, when they hear new accents and see new faces, feel unsettled. They worry that the new immigrants come not to work hard, but to live off our largesse. They are afraid that the America they know and love is becoming a foreign land. This reaction may be understandable, but it is wrong. Immigrants represent the spirit that built this country – a drive to succeed, a commitment to family, a hope for a better life. I pray that America will set an example for the world. What immigrants brought to America from 1880 to the 1920's in the realms of culture, scholarship, science, government and commerce contributed to our greatness as a world power during the Second World War and beyond.
Philistines in all ages prey on fear and bigotry and greed. We – the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants, and the descendants of Isaac – must remember that hatred of immigrants was directed against us earlier in the history of this great country. We need to recall that in the struggle with the immigrant Isaac, God blesses Isaac and takes his side. Ultimately, the Philistines realized the riches that industrious immigrants can bring, telling Isaac, “We now see plainly that Adonai has been with you.”
The Miami Herald ran a cartoon which showed a picture of the Statue of Liberty with an angry look, her torch of freedom extinguished and underneath, these words: “Attention: tired, poor, huddled masses, wretched refuse, homeless and tempest tossed . . . need not apply.”
Let that never be said of our land. Let us resolve to keep the torch of freedom lit, and to keep our doors open. For this is what America is all about and we, the descendants of Isaac, should understand this lesson best. Amen.
In preparing this message, I’ve utilized writings of Rabbis Jack Riemer and, particularly, Bradley Artson.
