On Jan. 17, 2025, I sat down for Shabbat dinner with my family as we do on most Friday evenings. We lit the candles, recited the table blessings, and shared a meal to end our work and start Shabbat.
But that Friday evening was different. After dinner, I left the house and picked up a family of three from the airport. Marta and her two children, 12 and 16, are refugees from Venezuela who had come to the United States to build a life of safety and security for themselves. My agency, Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, was assigned by HIAS (formerly Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) to receive and resettle them.
My daughter, Talyah, accompanied me on this airport pickup. Talyah is also 16, and it was remarkable how similar she was to Marta’s daughter. All three of the new arrivals were exhausted from a long day of travel and nervous about the journey ahead, but the two teenage girls spent the car ride talking about school and music. When we arrived at their host home, where they would stay temporarily until we finished securing an apartment for them, we sat together with their host family and introduced ourselves over freshly made challah. After all, it was Friday night!
Shortly after coming into office on Jan. 20, U.S. President Trump signed an Executive Order indefinitely pausing refugee resettlement. This meant that Marta and her children were the last refugees we would resettle until that order is lifted.
What followed that order was an outright attack on the refugee and immigrant community. On Jan. 24, one week after Marta and her family arrived in the United States, the Trump administration issued an unprecedented “stop work order” for all initial resettlement services. This means that across the country, refugee resettlement agencies were prohibited from continuing to provide initial services to families who had arrived within the previous 90 days, including families who had arrived less than a week earlier. We are prohibited from using federal dollars that Congress has already allocated for families who have arrived. We are prohibited from enrolling Marta’s 12-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter in school, scheduling doctor’s visits for them and their mother, driving to visit them to provide services or finding them permanent housing and paying their rent with funds that were already set aside for them. We have been asked to abandon them.
The Torah’s most often-repeated commandment is to “welcome the stranger.” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks in Faith in the Future writes,
The Hebrew Bible contains the great command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and this has often been taken as the basis of biblical morality. But … it is only part of it. The Jewish sages noted that on only one occasion does the Hebrew Bible command us to love our neighbor, but in thirty-seven places it commands us to love the stranger. Our neighbor is one we love because he is like ourselves. The stranger is one we are taught to love precisely because he is not like ourselves.[1]
The constant reminder of our obligation extends further. We are told that we should lift up our voice in the face of oppression. Hillel commands us “to see the humanity in others, especially in places where others fail to do so.” Rabbi Shai Held argues that “the Torah’s call is not based on a rational argument but on an urgent demand for empathy: Since you know what it feels like to be a stranger, you must never abuse or mistreat the stranger.”[2] He continues to note how remarkable it is that the Torah makes this argument.
It could have said, since you were tyrannized and exploited and no one did anything to help you, you don’t owe anything to anyone; how dare anyone ask anything of you? But it chooses the opposite path: Since you were exploited and oppressed, you must never be among the exploiters and degraders. You must remember what it feels like to be a stranger … and God holds you accountable to this obligation.
What does it mean to be accountable to this obligation in this unique moment? I believe that our tradition calls us to several critical actions:
Protect the Stranger
Refugee and immigrant communities are under a relentless attack. We must stand with them and protect them. We can do that by attending Know Your Rights (KYR) presentations like those offered by the ACLU or other advocacy groups. Here in Massachusetts we are lucky to have some fantastic immigrant advocacy groups like MIRA (Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition). They produced some KYR trainings[3] that are publicly available on their website. I encourage you to learn how you can protect immigrant communities by invoking constitutional protections, print KYR cards that you can hand out to community members in a variety of languages and investigating immigration scams that promise protection for immigrants but instead leave them vulnerable to action by immigration officers. Additionally, you should pay particular attention to the differences between judicial warrants and administrative warrants. A judicial warrant, signed by a judge, allows law enforcement to enter a building to search or detain someone. An administrative warrant is signed by an immigration officer and does not have any legal standing. Knowing the slight differences in these documents can be key to standing up.
Prepare Our Institutions
I encourage you to have discussions in your communities about preparing our institutions to support immigrant and refugee communities. This could include designating funding to support these communities and organizations that serve them. It might also include changes in your building policies that could make them less susceptible to entry by law enforcement for searching. At the very least, it should include a discussion and training on how to respond if ICE comes to your facility or if they detain some members of a family and leave others behind. JFS San Diego shared a well-written guide by Arkansas Immigration Defense meant to help schools and nonprofits prepare for ICE Raids[4] that I believe could be a helpful place for many faith communities to begin studying how to protect people who do not want to have contact with ICE.
Most importantly, I encourage you to designate someone in your community to research and stay up-to-date with changes in immigration policy. So much is changing so fast, and the chaos that creates is not an accidental byproduct. It is an intentional feature. Knowledge is power, and having someone in your community you can go to for good information can prevent you from spreading rumors or sharing outdated information. Personally, I have been following the Immigration Policy Tracking Project and have found that it is a reliable source for up-to-date information on changes in immigration policy, including important items that are not in the headlines.[5]
Lift Up Our Voices
In Deuteronomy 22:3, we are taught that it is our obligation to support the people who live around us. But the Torah goes further, saying, “lo tukhal lehit’alem — you must not remain indifferent.” Rashi takes this further, commenting that, “you must not cover your eyes, pretending not to see it.” There will be many moments in the years ahead when it would be easiest, perhaps even safest, for us to simply cover our eyes and pretend to not see the hateful or dehumanizing actions around us. The Torah is clear that is not a viable option.
We have a moral obligation to lift up our voices. That work is exhausting, but it is absolutely necessary. There is power in our collective action, and when we stay silent for fear of reprisal or retaliation, or for the ease of getting along, we risk giving up that power. HIAS, the nation’s oldest refugee agency and the Jewish community’s voice in refugee resettlement, has several actions you can take.[6] These simple steps can ensure your voice is heard. I promise our elected officials are paying attention. But more than just your federal lawmakers, I encourage you to reach out to state and local leaders. Remember that so much federal funding is passed back to states. It is important for them to hear your concerns and for them to also raise their voices to lobby for action by federal lawmakers and agencies. My agency, Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts, put together a simple call template for messages to state and federal lawmakers. It just takes a minute but can make a real difference.
Susanna Heschel wrote that,
When he came home from Selma in 1965 (from marching with Dr. King in Selma, AL), my father wrote, “for many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”
I have loved that quote for decades; it is a text that I have looked to for guidance and inspiration on countless occasions. And yet, as I drove home very late on Friday evening with my daughter after settling Marta and her children into their temporary housing, I experienced the text in a new light. In that moment, our work was worship, and our bodies were praying in the most beautiful language of welcoming.
Talyah asked me if she thought there would be others who would follow Marta and her children. Would other refugees be able to find safety and security in America in the years ahead? I became emotional as I told her I didn’t know the answer, but that I was confident in Judaism’s ancient call for justice and dignity for all people, and that I believed our community would stand up for refugees and for continuing to welcome the stranger. And so, I invite you to join the minyan of worship that prays in the language of advocacy and to raise up songs of justice and welcome. There is work to do, lives are at stake, and our ancestors are depending on us to carry forward the legacy of accountability to this sacred obligation.
[1] https://hias.org/wp-content/uploads/refugee_shabbat_text_study.pdf
[2]https://mechonhadar.s3.amazonaws.com/mh_torah_source_sheets/CJLIParashatMishpatim5774.pdf
[3] https://miracoalition.org/news/know-your-rights/
[4] https://www.jfssd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Preparing-for-ICE-Raids-A-Guide-for-School-Community-Partnerships.pdf
[5] https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/?after=2025-01-20
[6] https://hias.org/take-action/
