A Washington, D.C., rabbi says The U.S. should open its doors to imperiled European Jews. In a post at the Washington Post today, Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld writes:
As the world rightly focuses on the recent terror attacks in Paris on Charlie Hedbo and a kosher grocery store, it should be noted that the second attack is part of a larger problem: the ongoing vitriol toward the French Jewish community.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders invited French Jews to move to Israel. That’s a nice gesture, but it’s not enough. The United States should join Israel and offer to also open up its shores as a refuge to the endangered Jews of France.
He tells about his visits to France and the danger Jews are in if they wish to live openly as Jews.
When I speak with Jews in France today, I feel the return of a grave danger to Jews that has arisen too often in Europe. My father ran from the Nazis and, as a toddler, hid in the ditches of the French countryside to escape deportation and almost certain death. More recently, we remember the brutal killing of Ilan Halimi, the son of Jewish Moroccan immigrants, in January 2006…. during my recent visit to France, people mentioned Ilan Halimi’s name as a turning point for the Jews of France and as a harbinger of the tension that followed.
We must work toward saving France’s Jews before it is too late. Many French Jews are moving to Israel; more than 7,000 Jews from France have moved there this past year. Yet Israel’s existence as a refuge does not absolve the rest of the world from doing whatever is possible to save the Jews of France.
So how about it? Can French Jews seek asylum here? Or do refugees to the U.S. have to be destitute, low-skill, and a burden to the taxpayer? Let’s invite refugees who are educated, skilled, self-supporting, and an all-around benefit to our country — the Jews of France and any other European country where they are in danger.