Today, I’m thankful for those willing to take us in during our time of need.
In a few weeks’ time, we will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday.
Ironically, when you think back to the significance of the first Thanksgiving, what defines the occasion is the fact that those English immigrants who arrived in a foreign, rugged, scary place were afforded the chance to prosper with the support and approval of the Native Americans coexisting peacefully among them. The most amazing part of the United States is that it has always been a place where those from other places could immigrate for a better livelihood, the chance to receive an education, or the opportunity to escape from an oppressive existence. These immigrants brought their hopes and dreams with them, and, as a nation, we have matured and succeeded as a result of their visionary thinking, inspiration, and knack for innovation.
In the middle of the Hudson River lies a tall reminder of our mission as a nation. The Statue of Liberty serves as a fitting tribute that this is the land of immigrants, migrants, and refugees who were willing to leave their own beloved homelands to start anew in a strange, massive place. The ‘New Colossus’ was intended to remind all immigrants sailing into the Upper Bay that we welcome them with open arms. How fitting is it then that in November 1883, in an effort to secure the funding to construct the pedestal upon which Lady Liberty would reside, a young New York poet of Jewish ancestry would pen a sonnet that describes this noble mission:
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Emma Lazarus has spent her career as a poet chronicling the ills of ethnic injustice and cultural prejudice. As a fierce advocate of Russian Jews seeking to flee their homeland from the abuse of a czarist government, she wanted to ensure that Miss Liberty would symbolically stand as a beacon of hope for those who made the long journey to arrive to a newfangled life in America. Sadly, during this third week of November in 1887, Emma would die of cancer at the tender age of 38, just 4 years after she would pen her famous words. It would be another two decades before the world would see those words forever inscribed on a bronze plaque within the newly completed pedestal of the prodigious statue.
An overt willingness to assimilate with individuals who are truly different than us may be one of the greatest forms of philanthropy. Sadly, we sometimes forget that love begins when we open our hearts (and our homes) to others. Lady Liberty should be an expedient reminder that there was once a time when someone was willing to do the same for our ancestors (or even ourselves). In fact, if I were to trace the history of North American migration over the last tens of thousands of years, I’d quickly realize that we are all immigrants. Naturally, some of us are more recent migrants who made their way here less than three centuries ago, while others made the journey many centuries before across a strip of land where the Bering Strait now resides just a tad bit earlier than that. In either case, we are all immigrants to the New World.
Today, I’m reminded of a story that human migration has been and will continue to be a necessity in this world. Even more so, such migration is a worldwide phenomenon that stretches beyond the borders of the United States. After World War II, a new nation was formed on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The State of Israel was created in May 1948 as a land where Jewish people could peacefully live. Such a nation was founded just a few years after the end of a Nazi regime that had attempted to exterminate the Jewish population – a horrific Holocaust that cost the lives of more than 6 million Jewish people throughout Europe. Sadly, the Nazis were not the first. The history of the world is peppered with horrendous accounts of Jewish persecution. From the time of the great exodus of Moses to the more recent atrocities of the Nazi regime, Jews have been repeatedly persecuted for their religious beliefs. Even after World War II came to a close, many Jewish individuals living throughout the Middle East were subject to continued harassment for their religious beliefs.
Such was the case in Yemen in 1948. Nearly 50,000 Jews lived quietly in Yemen after World War II. After the decision was made to form the Israeli state, Yemeni Jews were attacked in the town of Aden, where nearly 50 people were killed and hundreds of homes were razed as retribution to the United Nations declaration of a new Jewish state. At around this time, the death of two Yemeni girls was also wrongfully blamed on the Yemeni Jews. Hence, religious tensions were reaching a boiling point in the small country. In an effort to avoid more bloodshed, the world mobilized to undertake a massive, coordinated effort to move Yemeni Jews to Israel. In fact, on this day (Nov 16) in 1948, the first of what would be more than 380 flights from Aden to Tel Aviv would transport these Yemeni Jews to Israel. Over a nearly two-year period, more than 49,000 Jews would clandestinely participate in Operation Magic Carpet – the name afforded to this mass exodus. Arriving on flights in British- and American-owned planes, these immigrants were welcomed into the new state of Israel. Despite the massive burden this and other migrations to Israel had on the young government, the Israel people accepted all these refugees. In their eyes, their raison d’être as a nation was being rightfully fulfilled.
These days, it seems easy to turn our backs on refugees and migrants wishing to enter our cities and towns. I would just gently remind everyone what our mission as a nation truly is. If you’re not too sure, I’d suggest you read the short sonnet fittingly authored by a young Jewish-American poet nearly 140 years ago.
Comments