Remembering the "X" word - Xenophobia in the 21st century

Last Friday night, as we gathered here for services, one by one, folks entered the sanctuary, with shock and horror on their faces. News of the terrorist attacks in Paris, that ultimately took over 100 lives, was trickling in. So frightening. Such heartbreak - to see the destruction, the evil, the lack of respect for innocent  life. Beautiful lives, mostly young, cut short. A beautiful city, one that many of us have spent time in, shaken by bombs and bullets.

And then, to compound the fear and the heartbreak, I have felt deep sadness as governors and congress members have hastily moved to shut Muslim refugees out of our country, from fear that these refugees could be terrorists in disguise. I was at a meeting in Middletown on Tuesday night where the state rep for Middletown shared that he had received 30 phone calls that day from constituents demanding that we not accept refugees.

At that meeting, I also learned about the shooting at the mosque in Meriden, just up the road. Thankfully no one was in the mosque on Friday night, when it is believed the shooting occurred. Several bullet holes were discovered in the walls of the building, and the FBI is currently investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime.

 All of this brings back memories of the days just after the Sept 11th attacks, when Jim and I were living in NYC. It was hard enough to sit with the terror, the fear, the grief, the stench. But to then immediately be assaulted, over the airwaves, by anti-Muslim and xenophobic rhetoric, only compounded the trauma.

But I also had moments of pride this week.

Governor Malloy, announced his commitment to continue taking refugees from Syria and Iraq, into CT. At that same meeting in Middletown, a representative from IRIS, a refugee resettlement agency based in New haven, announced that  a Syrian refugee family who had been en route from a refugee camp in the Middle East to Indiana, was rerouted to Connecticut. She had been there to welcome them to New Haven that afternoon. And last week our synagogue board endorsed our congregations participation in a larger faith community effort to settle 3 refugee families in Middletown this year.

It was good to see that the ADL, a Jewish organization, publicly condemned the shooting at the Meriden mosque. And I was proud to watch Mark Hetfield, the CEO of HIAS, the oldest refugee agency in the US, testify on Capitol Hill this week, making a very clear and persuasive argument that our American values call upon us to continue to welcome refugees into the US and to not put up further barriers . 

I’ll just share a bit of what I learned from watching his testimony:

These refugees from Syria and Iraq wait an average of 2 years to receive clearance to enter our country, and all refugees undergo the most rigorous vetting and screening process of any group seeking entrance to the US. By seeking to block their entry we are blaming the victims of the same perpetrators of the same violence that we witnessed in Paris. They are fleeing bombs and torture, children are dying, and people are risking their lives to get to safety. He clarified that US refugee policy is wholly different from Europe. There, the vetting process begins once the person has already arrived in Europe. Our process begins when the person has fled their country and are waiting in a refugee camp in a second country. We screen out 50% of all eligible refugees that might pose a risk and only take in the most vulnerable  - mostly women and children and older men. They undergo rigorous background checks with a number of agencies, and have an interview with a Homeland Security officer face to face.

(Pause)

At the HHDs this year when we prayed the Ashamnu confession for the first time, using our new HHD prayerbook, there was a word that was notably missing: the sin of xenophobia. I understand that in the new edition, the authors wanted to get away from the traditional alphabetized acrostic of our sins.

But for me, xenophobia is not just a funny word for a sin that just happens to start with the letter “x”. When we say this word out loud as part of our communal confession, it evokes the horror of the Holocaust, the phenomenon of people looking away from the suffering of our people, and the closing of borders to Jewish refugees. I’m sure many of us saw the tweet this week that showed the statistic from 1939 of 67% of Americans being opposed to letting European political refugees into this country.

Two of my grandparents squeezed in that very year, from Germany, just making the quota. We still have the steamer trunk my grandmother carried, stamped with the name of the ship she took to get here - the S. S. St. Louis. Thank God she didn’t have to go through a 2-year vetting process. She made it onto what we think was the last voyage of that ship before the ill-fated voyage that docked in Cuba and had to turn back to Europe, after getting close enough that the passengers could see  the lights of Miami. Hundreds of these passengers ultimately perished in the Holocaust.

Unfortunately today, we are seeing that the sin of xenophobia still needs to be in our prayerbook. The fear of the stranger prevents us from looking at a person and seeing that they are a vulnerable human being, just like me, just because they look different, they have a different religion, they speak a different language. Xenophobia is what allows us to attach a stereotype to a person - to see a Muslim, even a Muslim child! -  and automatically see a terrorist.

Last Shabbat, we presented our congregant, Martha Stone, a noted advocate for children’s rights in this state, with our first Pursuers of Justice and Peace award. One of the most inspiring things she talked about was the poster she described that hangs in her office, that she looks at every day. It asks, “What do you stand for?”

If you were to search the Torah for the most common theme, you would find that the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger appears more than any other commandment. Thirty six times, we are told to love the stranger, to welcome the stranger, to treat the stranger as a citizen. This is what we stand for as Jews, more than any other value in our Torah.

By not taking in refugees fleeing ISIS, we confirm ISIS’s distorted thinking- we play directly into what THEY stand for - that the West is the enemy of Islam and Muslims.

What are WE going to stand for, during this, the largest refugee crisis in the world since WWII?

I believe that the commandment to love and welcome the stranger is repeated so many times in the Torah in order to immunize us against the fear that is so natural to us and which distracts us from what we stand for.

The Paris terror attacks last week understandably stir up great fear. It feels close to home - many of us have been to Paris, speak French. We identify. 

I am probably one of very few if any people in this room tonight who speaks Arabic and has lived in an Arab country. Those places and cultures feel foreign to us. It is important to remember though, when we are taken over by fear, that these types of terror attacks have been carried out by ISIS for years, killing hundreds of people, in other large modern cities like Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad. In fact, Beirut - the Paris of the Middle East - was also attacked last Friday night. But Lebanon has not stopped welcoming refugees, Jordan hasn’t stopped welcoming refugees, just because those attacks felt “close to home” for them.

I don’t believe that we should decide that now, since Paris was attacked and since this makes us more afraid, that we should block people from seeking refuge in our country. When we feel this intense fear, we need to take a breath and return to our intention - our values - what we stand for. We need to remember to distinguish in our minds between Muslims and terrorists - between refugees fleeing violence, and those who are perpetrating it.

This week in our Torah portion, Jacob is fleeing his brother Esau, who is after him to kill him. On the way, Jacob has a famous dream - angels are going up and down a staircase to heaven. In the dream God promises to be with Jacob, wherever he goes. At the end of the Torah portion, Jacob is finally on his way back home, after living in exile for 20 years. As he makes his way home, angels again greet him to accompany him.

As Americans, as Jews, we can be there for people fleeing into exile. We can be an accompanying presence, a welcoming presence. The best way, I believe, to neutralize extremist ideology, is through love - to show Muslims around the world what it means to be American:  To be those angels – to care for our fellow human beings - to provide a place of refuge.

Yom Kippur Morning 5776/2015 All Lives Matter: Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

All Lives Matter

Yom Kippur Morning 5776/2015

Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

In the Midrash, our rabbis bring a teaching on a case of the court-ordered punishment of flogging:

Two men go to court, and one is determined to be guilty.

The Torah says[1],

If the guilty one is to be flogged, the magistrate shall have him lie down and be given lashes in his presence, by count, as his guilt warrants. He may be given up to forty lashes, but not more, lest being flogged further, to excess, your brother be degraded before your eyes.

The Midrash teaches[2],

From the moment he is flogged, he is your brother.

From this it was said, “all who are liable for excommunication and are flogged immediately are exempted from excommunication.” Rabbi Chananya ben Gamliel said, “all day, the text calls him ‘wicked,’ . . . . but from the time that he is flogged, the text calls him ‘your brother’. . . .”

According to our tradition, trom the moment the punishment is brought against a guilty person, he is no longer called “wicked”; he is called “your brother.”

And this punishment takes place before our eyes, so that we can be sure that the number of lashes accords with the count that his guilt warrants, and no more.

In her book, “The New Jim Crow,” Ohio State law professor and civil rights advocate Michele Alexander shares innumerable stories and studies, about the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, especially of African American men. Our country’s enormous incarceration system, and its injustices, are largely hidden from our view. It is hard for us to even know what the magistrates are doing, as our systems of justice and punishment are not carried out as described in the Torah: before our eyes.

But in the haftarah this morning, Isaiah reminds us that today is a day for scrutiny – of ourselves and of the society we are building. The fast that God expects from us today is one that forces us to face the stories we would rather not hear.

Alexander argues, based on enormous amounts of research, that the current War on Drugs, including mandatory minimum sentences, and many other aspects of the criminal justice system comprise a new manifestation of a racist system of control.  This system began with slavery, morphed into Jim Crow, and now uses the justice system to severely limit and control the lives of a huge proportion of Black people in this country.

Alexander tells the social history of how from slavery, through Jim Crow, to today, Black men have been presumed to be criminals. Today, they are swept up into the criminal justice system in huge numbers, the system pressures the accused – and often the innocent – to plead guilty to lesser charges. They are then left with a record of arrests, jail time, and the label of “felon” for the rest of their lives.

This label of “felon” then releases the rest of society from any responsibility for a person’s future welfare. He is forever known as “wicked.”  He is no longer our “brother.”

Here are just two stories from Alexander’s book[3]:

Imagine you are Emma Faye Stewart, a 30-year-old, single African American mother of two who was arrested as part of a drug sweep in Hearne, Texas. All but one of the people arrested were African American. You are innocent. After a week in jail, you have no one to care for your two small children and are eager to get home. Your court-appointed attorney urges you to plead guilty to a drug distribution charge, saying the prosecutor has offered probation. You refuse, steadfastly proclaiming your innocence. Finally, after a month in jail, you decide to plead guilty so you can return home to your children. Unwilling to risk a trial and years of imprisonment, you are sentenced to ten years probation and ordered to pay $1000 in fines, as well as court and probation costs. You are also now branded as a drug felon. You are no longer eligible for food stamps; you may be discriminated against in employment; you cannot vote for at least 12 years; and you are about to be evicted from public housing. Once homeless, your children will be taken from you and put in foster care.

A judge eventually dismisses all cases against the defendants who did not plead guilty. At trial, the judge finds that the entire sweep was based on the testimony of a single informant who lied to the prosecution. You, however, are still a drug felon, homeless, and desperate to regain custody of your children.

Now place yourself in the shoes of Clifford Runoalds, another African American victim of the Hearne drug bust. You returned home to Bryan Texas to attend the funeral of your 18-month-old daughter. Before the funeral services begin, the police show up and handcuff you. You beg the officers to let you take one last look at your daughter before she is buried. The police refuse. You are told by the prosecutors that you are needed to testify against one of the defendants in a recent drug bust. You deny witnessing any drug transaction; you don’t know what they are talking about. Because of your refusal to cooperate, you are indicted on felony charges. After a month of being held in jail, the charges against you are dropped. You are technically free, but as a result of your arrest and period of incarceration , you lose your job, your apartment, your furniture, and your car. Not to mention the chance to say good-bye to your baby girl.

According to Alexander, these “brutal stories. . .  are not isolated incidents, nor are the racial identities of Emma. . .  and Clifford . . . random or accidental. In every state across our nation, African Americans –particularly in the poorest neighborhoods—are subjected to tactics and practices that would result in public outrage and scandal if committed in middle-class white neighborhoods. . . .”[4]

“Where is your brother” – God asks Cain.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” is his response.

And the Torah reminds us, “You shall not remain indifferent.”

Here are just a few statistics[5]:

·      When the War on Drugs gained full steam in the mid-80’s, drug related prison admissions for Blacks nearly quadrupled in three years, and then increased steadily until in 2000, it reached a level more than 26 times the level in 1983.

·      Today, in at least 15 states, blacks are admitted to prison on drug charges at a rate from 20 to 57 times greater than that of white men.

·      These are the numbers, despite the fact that the vast majority of illegal drug users and dealers nationwide are white.

·      Incarceration rates continue to climb in all communities – even though violent crime rates are at historic lows.

·      Overall, one in every 14 black men was behind bars in 2006 compared with one in 106 white men. And for black men between the ages of 20 and 35 the rate skyrockets to one in nine.

In the book of Deuteronomy[6], we read,

“Tzedek, tzedek tirdof,”

“Justice, justice you shall pursue.”

The commentators ask why the word “tzedek,” or “justice” is repeated twice.

One answer they give is that just ends can only be achieved through just means[7].

The means: our system of law enforcement, how we enter a plea of guilt or innocence, the way we populate juries, how we sentence people, the punishments themselves, and what happens afterwards. The means must be just in order for us to call what we are doing, “tzedek,”– “justice.”

Another story – this time from the Washington Post[8]:

In February 2010, Louis Sawyer, a 49-year-old Black man, was released from federal prison in Pennsylvania after spending more than half of his life behind bars for murder. Authorities rejected his plan to live with family, who could support him while he looked for work. Sawyer was left to return to Washington, D.C., where he had no home, no job prospects and no family. A blizzard had hobbled the mid-Atlantic, and Sawyer called Hope Village, his appointed halfway house, to ask if he could delay the trip. Permission denied. If he wasn't there by midnight, he'd be considered an escapee.

Sawyer checked in and entered the kitchen-less, two-bedroom apartment he'd share with up to seven roommates. He had four months to find a job and permanent housing. If he failed, he could be evicted and end up homeless.

Louis began signing up for classes. One taught him about the internet, which he had never encountered. Hope Village threw up obstacles, though: the computer lab was reserved for a GED course, not job searches, and cellphones and laptops were not allowed.

Another training program rejected him because there was a nursery school in the building where it met, even though his offense had occurred 25 years ago and had nothing to do with children.

His job applications were rejected, one after another, because he had to check “the box” indicating he had a criminal record. He went to city jobs fairs, though he soon learned that most of the organizations represented there did not hire returning citizens. Ultimately he was accepted into a transitional home and eventually did land a part-time job, more than 6 months after leaving prison, through a contact made a church. Today he works as a peer advocate for people recently released from prison.

Mass incarceration has enormous consequences, not only when a person is in prison, but even more so when they are released. Nationwide over 46,000 statutes impose consequences on people convicted of crimes. Many states bar people with felony convictions from jobs that require licenses – including nursing, hair dressing and plumbing. Many employers are reluctant to hire people with criminal records, reducing the likelihood of job callback or offer by around 50%. 

When citizens return from prison, if they are able to find a job, they rarely earn a living wage, perpetuating the cycle of poverty and incarceration. And this doesn’t just affect those who served time; simply having an arrest record can affect an employer’s decision.

Louis is an exceptional example - he doesn’t drink or use drugs, he was able to develop marketable skills while in prison, and he is healthy. Many other returning citizens have minimal education and are also struggling with addictions and mental health issues, creating even more obstacles.

Our brothers’ voices cry out to us.

Shall we remain indifferent?

How can it be that in our country, the only jobs that will hire returning citizens are those related to helping other returning prisoners.

The Midrash I opened with says, “all who are liable for excommunication and are flogged immediately are exempted from excommunication.” 

How can it be that our society does the bare minimum, if that, to help our brothers reintegrate and become contributing members of the community.

This afternoon, we will read in the book of Leviticus that we are commanded to have accurate and honest scales, weights and measures. The word used for “accurate” or “honest” is again this word, “tzedek” or “just.”

A holy society is based on a justly calibrated system of scales, weights and measures.  The Torah doesn’t use this word “tzedek” by accident. I think these verses are teaching us that if our system of tzedek is out of whack – if the scales and systems of justice are not calibrated correctly – we will end up doing acts of great injustice.

Let me be clear – I am not laying the blame here on any one person or group of people or facet of our justice system. I don’t believe that all of our police are corrupt or are out on the streets purposefully looking for Black men to arrest. But I do believe that the scales – the system –has been calibrated  - and Michele Alexander argues – purposefully calibrated –in a way that incentivizes and rewards unjust and racist practices that have unjust and racist results.

The system has been calibrated such that the prisoner is no longer considered our brother.

It is calibrated such that not enough weight is given to elements of compassion such as rehabilitation, mental health and addiction services, housing, and real support for finding employment after release from prison.

The system has been calibrated such that outrageous numbers of African Americans –shockingly disproportionate to their population and the crime rates in their communities – are under correctional control today.

One result of this distorted system is that “more African American adults are under correctional control today – in prison or jail, on probation or parole – than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.”[9]

One result is that “more [black men] are disenfranchised today than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.”[10]

One result is that “Young black men today may be just as likely to suffer discrimination in employment, housing, public benefits, and jury service as a black man in the Jim Crow era – discrimination that is perfectly legal, because it is based on one’s criminal record.”[11]

When we break our fast today, there are a number of actions we can take.

One is to learn more –every American of conscience should read Michele Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, and I hope to create an opportunity to discuss it as a congregation this year.

We can also thank our state lawmakers and our governor for recently passing Second Chance Society legislation. These laws reduce sentences for non-violent offences, abolish mandatory minimum sentences for drug possession, increase services to reintegrate non-violent offenders into society and work to close the school-to-prison pipeline. We will have a chance to get involved when it comes to implementing this legislation.

We can also be proud that multiple cities in CT have already agreed to Ban the Box on employment applications – the box a person has to check to indicate a prior conviction or felony – before even having a chance for a job interview. However, this only applies to the public sector. Those of us in the private sector and in the non-profit world should also refrain from excluding a job applicant from consideration solely based on a past conviction.

Our brothers cry out to us,

And on this day of self-scrutiny, we are called upon to ask ourselves, “What truly disturbs us?” “Whom do we really care about?” “Whose lives really matter?”

In our Torah portion this morning, when Moses reaffirms our sacred covenant, demanding that we choose life, Moses addresses our entire nation – men and women, children, strangers, from woodchoppers to water drawers.

Everyone is a part of this sacred covenantal system.

No one can say, “it is not my responsibility.”

Our sacred American covenantal system of justice, as it is currently calibrated, is not just.

This should disturb us.

It is our responsibility.

And when we are told to choose life, we should never be asking, “for whom?”

Because All Lives Matter.

---

[1] Deut. 25:3

[2] Sifrei Ki Tetze 286

[3] Michele Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New York: 2012, p. 97-8.

[4] Ibid. p. 98

[5] Ibid. p. 98-100

[6] Deut 16:20

[7] Simcha Bunem, quoted in Etz Hayyim commentary on Deut 16:20

[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011405709.html

[9] Ibid. p. 180.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.