Bill Lerman's D'var Torah for Temple of Aaron

Shabbat Shalom

In last week’s parsha – Mishpatim, Exodus 22:20 – we are instructed: You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in Egypt. This is the first of 36 times in the Torah that we are cautioned about behavior toward a stranger. As Rabbi Harold Kushner says in the commentary of your Etz Hayyim: “The decency of a society is measured by how it cares for its least powerful members.

About 120 years ago my great grandparents came from Latvia to this country on their honeymoon. They liked it so much here that they decided to stay. According to the immigration laws at that time, this was no problem. Our borders were open for white people. This remained true until 1924. During this period many of our ancestors came to this country. In 1924, the doors were closed. It became almost impossible for Jews to enter this country and for those who did enter the wait could be years. Because of this political decision, Jews were not able to escape Europe. We don’t know how many of the 6,000,000 of our brothers and sisters would have been able to escape their fate if the doors had been open, but it surely would have been many thousands. Immigration laws have always been about political needs not about some imagined financial or physical ability to absorb immigrants. Today we have a system that is broken.
Since its creation in 2003, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has detained thousands of people in raids on businesses and residences throughout the country. According to ICE, these raids are designed to protect public safety and national security by enforcing federal immigration law. However, these raids cause a considerable amount of hardship for immigrants and their families- both in the U.S. and in home countries- and for U.S. citizens.

Raids separate families, violate U.S. due process laws, hurt the economy, waste taxpayer money, misuse local police, and threaten the basic human rights of U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike.

Facts: The Raids
* In 2008, 5,100 were taken into custody during workplace raids compared to 685 in 2004.
* Many raids involve violations of due process, including entering without a warrant, interrogation without reasonable suspicion of unlawful immigration status, and racial profiling.

Facts: The Costs

* In 2008, ICE’s budget was $5B. That’s 80% more than the Environmental Protection Agency and $4B more than the Department of State

* Although ICE has not disclosed the amount spent on all of its 2008 raids, $5.2 million was spent on the raid on Agriprocessors in Iowa. 389 workers were detained, making the cost $13,300 per detainee.
* It costs approximately $95 per person per night to keep a person in a detention center.

Facts: The Detention Centers
* Over 300,000 people are held in immigration detention facilities each year at an annual cost to the government of nearly $2 billion.
* Approximately 67% of people detained in ICE raids are not held in Department of Homeland Security detention centers. Instead, they are detained in over 312 county and city prisons nationwide where DHS rents bed space. Detained immigrants are mixed in with incarcerated criminals.
* Immigrants detained in raids can remain in detention centers for as long as three years. During this time, detainees are held in severely overcrowded facilities, sometimes 50% over design capacity.

Facts: The Communities and Families
Many of these immigrants come with there families who then suffer because of the ICE raids even though many of the children are U. S. citizens.
* 5,000,000 U.S. citizens under the age of 18 have 1-2 undocumented parents.
* Small towns and local economies can be crippled by immigration raids. In towns such as Laurel, Mississippi and Postville, Iowa, sites of the two largest ICE raids in U.S. history, the loss of taxpayers, tenants, and workers at businesses have caused property values to plummet and general economic crisis.
Whether you agree or disagree that these immigrants should be allowed to be in the country, there are two important facts to consider: 1) These people came to this country like almost everyone does and did to find work and make a better life; and 2) our immigration system needs to be reformed.

What can be done to hasten this reform?
Jewish Community Action and partners across the country, including: Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago), Jews United For Justice (D.C.), Progressive Jewish Alliance (Los Angeles), Jews For Racial and Economic Justice (NY), JCRC of Southern Arizona, JCRC of Greater Washington, Uri L’Tzedek (NY), Miklat! A Jewish Response to Displacement (Milwaukee), the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, B’nai B’rith Intl., Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, National Council of Jewish Women, Union for Reform Judaism, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Jewish Labor Committee, and the Rabbinical Assembly invite you to join in a campaign called Progress by Pesach. The goal is simple: an end to immigration raids by Passover.
For Jews, Passover is a time when we celebrate our freedom from bondage, remember when we were strangers in a strange land, and connect our history to modern-day liberation struggles.
This year, Passover coincides with the end of the Obama Administration’s First 100 Days. The campaign calls upon President Obama to issue an executive order ending immigration raids immediately. This would demonstrate that real progress has been made toward the long-term goal of fair, humane, comprehensive federal immigration reform and is an important part of supporting immigrants and communities.

President Obama will only sign an executive order ending immigration raids if we make sure our voices are heard loudly along with the voices of immigrants and allies. Recently there was an ICE raid in Bellingham, Washington.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a review of this raid that ended with the arrests of 28 illegal immigrants. She wants to know why the Tuesday raid happened and all background information, as she looks into the case.
President Obama, who appointed Napolitano, has signaled for a shift in immigration policy that would rely less on work site enforcement, focusing instead on employers who hire illegal immigrants and overall immigration reform.
We need fair, humane, comprehensive federal immigration reform to protect the rights of all people. This reform would provide a path to citizenship, emphasize family reunification, legalize future migration, protect human rights, ensure dignity and due process of law, and protect workers and employers. We cannot rely on enforcement only tactics like raids to fix our broken immigration system.

Many of our ancestors came to this country when immigration laws were different, and at times they were excluded by U.S. immigration policy. Some of our ancestors also arrived without documents too. Until CFIR is passed, there is virtually no path to legal residency and citizenship available to the majority of new immigrants.

What can you do?
Join Jewish Community Action in raising your voice by signing this petition. It will be in the small chapel as you enter. Or go to jewish community action.org and sign on line.

You can also join Jewish Community Action at its 7th annual Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder on March 22, 2009 and use our Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder inserts at your families’ Passover celebration in April.
Again I would like to thank the Rabbi and also the Rosenblum’s for this opportunity to speak.

Progress by Pesach This Week: Mpls Jewish Film Festival

Weds, March 11
8:15PM
Sabes JCC

Welcome the Stranger (SHORT)
Director: Steven Date | USA, 2009 | 11 minutes | English and Spanish with English subtitles
On May 12, 2008, approximately 900 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) agents entered the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in the small town of Postville, Iowa and arrested nearly 400 workers. Instead of charging the undocumented workers with immigration violations, for the first time, many were charged with felonies and sentenced to 5 month prison terms plus deportation. On July 27, 2008 Jewish Community Action, along with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago) and St. Bridget Catholic Church (Postville), led a rally in Postville calling for immigrant and worker rights, in solidarity with those affected by the immigration raid.
Welcome the Stranger, a film currently in production by MinnPost videojournalist Steven Date and Jewish Community Action takes you to the rally in Postville to see and hear Rabbis, Christian clergy, workers and their families come together in support of worker and immigrant rights. Steven Date and Lauren Bastien from Jewish Community Action will present this work in progress.

Strangers Following Welcome the Stranger Screening
Directors: Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv | Israel, 2007 | 85 minutes | Arabic, English, French and Hebrew, with English subtitles
An accidental meeting sparks an improbable romance linking an Israeli kibbutznik and a Palestinian woman in this critically-acclaimed exploration of nationality and the heart. Eyal and Rana (superb improvisation by actors Liron Levo and Lubna Azabal) meet serendipitously on their way to the World Cup soccer finals in Berlin after their bags are mistakenly swapped. A quick magnetic glance on a subway soon becomes an unbreakable bond, even as war in their homeland tests loyalties. Innovatively filmed with handheld cameras and unscripted performances, Strangers presents a strikingly realistic treatment of a complex relationship in which politics and personalities collide. (Summary courtesy of Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, 2009)
Warning: Mature Sexual Content
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival

Welcome the Stranger (short) followed by Strangers
wednesday, march 11
8:15 pm, sabesjcc
For a full schedule, tickets, venue and sponsorship information, visit
www.mplsjff.org or call 952.381.3499.
Sabes Jewish Community Center
Jay and Rose Phillips Building
Barry Family Campus
4330 S. Cedar Lake Road
Minneapolis, MN 55416

Week 5 Update

· Campaign Updates

· 6 Reasons why the Jewish Community Should Respond to the Call of Justice and Act on Immigration Reform and Ending Raids

· Mpls Jewish Film Festival Showing of “Welcome the Stranger” trailer by Steve Date, on Postville (flier attached for circulation)

· 7^th Annual Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder (flier attached for circulation)

Campaign Updates:

Jewish Community Action is happy to say that Progress by Pesach has been overwhelmingly embraced by the American Jewish community. Supporters range from affiliated to non-affiliated, Renewal to Orthodoxy, institutional to informal, as well as countless supporters from immigrant and immigrant rights communities. Seeing this kind of support for immigrant rights coming out of our community is inspiring to us, and we hope it is to you too.

-1,600 + signatures collected, we still need 8,400 more to reach our goal of 10,000

-21 National and locally based Jewish organizations have signed on and are actively working on and engaging in the campaign- that means tens of thousands of people in our communities are learning about and acting for immigrant rights!

-Locally, JCA members and volunteers are hosting house parties and giving D’vars about immigration issues and Progress by Pesach at their congregations – if you want to join in, just let us know.

Sign the petition and letters at www.progressbypesach.blogspot.com – look for local and national versions in right hand column.

Already signed petition? Forward on to your friend and family.

Six Reasons - Among Many Others - Why the Jewish Community Should Respond to the Call for Justice and Act on Immigration Reform Including an End to Raids:

36 Instances in the Torah Instruct Us to Care for the Stranger in Our Land, Recalling Our Time in Egypt:
Leviticus 19:33 commands, "When a stranger (ger) resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The ger who dwells with you should be like one of your citizens."

Jewish Tradition Demands that We Redeem the Captive
Today, a multitude of immigrants and asylum seekers spend their days in U.S. detention centers facing deportation. Detained immigrants are separated from their families and are often kept in deplorable conditions without access to proper medical care.

Jewish Values Command Us to Care for the Poor:
Many undocumented workers are exploited by their employers, who take advantage of their vulnerable situation forcing them to endure unsafe working conditions and low wages.
We are commanded in Deuteronomy Chapter 15: 7 to care for the poor in our land as it is said: “If there be among you a needy man, […] you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your needy brother”

Our Jewish Journey Obligates Us to Identify with the Immigration Struggle
“[H]istorically, the Jew has been considered an alien; a stranger, an outsider even in host societies where Jewish communities had flourished for thousands of years. Indeed, the traditional founder of Judaism, the Patriarch Abraham, was himself a migrant when he followed the call to leave his kinmen and his birthplace, Ur Khasdim, with its many associations and memories, and to migrate as a stranger and wanderer to Canaan, the Promised Land. From the Jewish perspective, migration has not only served as a safety valve to escape possible destruction; it may also be considered the loom upon which the distinctive and variegated pattern of Jewish history has been woven through the ages.”

Our Own Jewish History Calls on Us to Respond with a Strong Voice to the Immigration Crisis
When Jews arrived in Eastern Europe in the early 20^th century, they faced harsh and difficult immigration policies and then deplorable living conditions once they finally arrive in the US. For example, when Jews arrived at Ellis Island, they underwent dreaded medical examinations and psychological tests. Moreover, many had been slated for deportation by the sometimes harsh and imperious-acting officials. Because of language barriers and legal formalities, immigrants scheduled to be deported were rarely able to defend themselves. Jewish institutional intervention with the Board of inquiry on their behalf effectively decreased the number sent back.

Our Experience Advocating for Immigration Reform Mandates Us to TAKE ACTION NOW
The Jewish community and its institutions have been actively engaged in the struggles of new immigrants and in the development of the nation’s immigration policy from the early 19^th century until today. We have advocated against the national origin quota systems, championed the cause of refugees, and fought to restore due process protections and access to public benefits.

Courtesy of Irene Lehrer Sandalow at Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago)

Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival Presents: Premier screening of Welcome the Stranger

A trailer to the full length film coming soon about the July 09 Postville Solidarity Rally, by Steve Date and Jewish Community Action

Wednesday, March 11 @ 8:15PM at the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival (Sabes JCC) in Minneapolis

On May 12, 2008, approximately 900 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) agents entered the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in the small town of Postville, Iowa and arrested nearly 400 workers. Instead of charging the undocumented workers with immigration violations, for the first time, many were charged with felonies and sentenced to 5 month prison terms plus deportation. On July 27, 2008 Jewish Community Action, along with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago) and St. Bridget Catholic Church (Postville), led a rally in Postville calling for immigrant and worker rights, in solidarity with those affected by the immigration raid.

Welcome the Stranger, a film currently in production by MinnPost video journalist Steve Date and Jewish Community Action takes you to the rally in Postville to see and hear Rabbis, Christian clergy, workers and their families come together in support of worker and immigrant rights.

To order tickets: www.mplsjff.org, FFI: lauren@jewishcommunityaction.org

Jewish Community Action’s 7th Annual Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder

Sunday, March 22 doors @ 2PM, event starts promptly at 3PM at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul

$5-$10 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds, light Seder food will be provided, families and all ages welcome

Passover is a time when we celebrate our freedom from bondage, remember when we were strangers in a strange land, and connect our history to modern-day liberation struggles. Our Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder brings together people from diverse backgrounds to share the story of Passover and its message of freedom. This year the theme is immigrant rights and worker justice. We will highlight two campaigns: Progress by Pesach, the Jewish call for an end to immigration raids and Hekhsher Tzedek, a consumer effort to improve the working conditions in the kosher food industry.

Please RSVP by March 12^th: lauren@jewishcommunityaction.org, 651.632.2184

RAIDS CONTINUE, URGENT NEED TO END THEM

RAIDS ARE STILL HAPPENING

It’s not over yet. Things were looking up, no worksite immigration raids since Obama’s election, until yesterday. In Bellingham, WA, 28 workers were arrested in an immigration raid at a remanufacturing plant and deportation proceedings have begun. (read full story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008781541_webraid24m.html)

Now more than ever is the time to make our voices heard in calling for an end to immigration raids and in favor of passing humane, federal, comprehensive immigration reform.

Immigration officials raid Bellingham plant

Immigration officers today raided an engine remanufacturing plant in Bellingham, arrested 28 illegal immigrant workers and began processing them for deportation.

By Lornet Turnbull

Seattle Times staff reporter

Immigration officers today raided an engine remanufacturing plant in Bellingham, arrested 28 illegal immigrant workers and began processing them for deportation.

The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at Yamato Engine Specialists in Bellingham.

ICE officials say the 25 men and three women — most of them from Mexico — may have gained employment at Yamato using phony social security numbers and other counterfeit identity documents.

Yamato officials, who said they had been cooperating with ICE since last fall when investigators began looking at employment documents, were shocked by today's raid.

In fact, three of the workers arrested today had been cleared as having legitimate documents during an employment records audit by ICE in 2005, said Yamato spokeswoman Shirin Dhanani Makalai.

We have been audited before so we do due diligence to get the proper paperwork," Makalai said. "People bring you paperwork that by law you are required to accept. You can't always tell if it's not correct."

With about 100 workers, Yamato specializes in rebuilding Japanese car engines and transmissions.

ICE investigators began looking into its employment records following the arrest of a criminal illegal immigrant who had previously worked there.

After being processed earlier today, officials released three of the immigrants on humanitarian grounds. The others are being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

"The lure of jobs in the United States continues to be one of the primary factors fueling illegal immigration," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Seattle.

"ICE remains committed to investigating cases where the evidence shows employment laws are being violated."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

Upcoming Community Wide Events

Upcoming Events:

*NEXT IRLT MEETING, Tuesday, March 3 from 6-8pm at Macalester College, Old Main Building Room 003*

· Premier screening of Welcome the Stranger

A film by Steve Date and Jewish Community Action about Postville

Wednesday, March 11 @ 8:15PM at the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival (Sabes JCC) in Minneapolis

On May 12, 2008, approximately 900 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) agents entered the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in the small town of Postville, Iowa and arrested nearly 400 workers. Instead of charging the undocumented workers with immigration violations, for the first time, many were charged with felonies and sentenced to 5 month prison terms plus deportation. On July 27, 2008 Jewish Community Action, along with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs (Chicago) and St. Bridget Catholic Church (Postville), led a rally in Postville calling for immigrant and worker rights, in solidarity with those affected by the immigration raid.

Welcome the Stranger, a film currently in production by MinnPost video journalist Steve Date and Jewish Community Action takes you to the rally in Postville to see and hear Rabbis, Christian clergy, workers and their families come together in support of worker and immigrant rights.

To order tickets: www.mplsjff.org, FFI: lauren@jewishcommunityaction.org

· Jewish Community Action’s 7th Annual Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder

Sunday, March 22 doors @ 2PM, event starts promptly at 3PM at Mount Zion Temple in St. Paul

$5-$10 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds, light Seder food will be provided, families and all ages welcome

Passover is a time when we celebrate our freedom from bondage, remember when we were strangers in a strange land, and connect our history to modern-day liberation struggles. Our Immigrant Rights Freedom Seder brings together people from diverse backgrounds to share the story of Passover and its message of freedom. This year the theme is immigrant rights and worker justice. We will highlight two campaigns: Progress by Pesach, the Jewish call for an end to immigration raids and Hekhsher Tzedek, a consumer effort to improve the working conditions in the kosher food industry.

Please RSVP by March 12^th: lauren@jewishcommunityaction.org, 651.632.2184

Updates from the Field

Campaign Update:

· There are 2 more co-signers to the campaign, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Justice (JALSA) and Women of Reform Judaism, bringing the total up to 20 Jewish organizations!

· We’ve collected over 1,000 signatures, but we still need at least 9,000 more in the next 5 weeks to make our goal.

5 Easy Things You Can Do...

Be a Part of the Action:

1. Attend the next IRLT meeting on Tuesday, March 3 at Macalester College from 6-8:00PM, ffi: lauren@jewishcommunityaction.org

2. Host Progress by Pesach House Parties for friends, family and neighbors - we'll help you create a great event!

3. Send the petitions and letter around to everyone you know, you can even print a paper copy and take it with you at: www.progressbypesach.blogspot.com

4. Help with phone banking for signatures, just call us for a date/time 651.632.2184

5. Gather a group and hit the streets with petitions, we will help you with materials and location/date suggestions, call 651.632.2184 for more info