Rahm’s rabbi, Michelle’s cousin join ‘Progress by Pesach’

Thursday’s  "Progress by Passover" press conference urging comprehensive immigration reform featured two Chicago Orthodox rabbis with links to two very high ranking officials of the Obama administration: Rabbi Asher Lopatin, of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation, was White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s rabbi in Chicago, while Rabbi Capers Funnye is first lady Michelle Obama’s cousin. Which begged the obvious question: Would they use their connections to help on the issue?

"We’ll use all the influence we have," said Lopatin, but he thought that influence would be much less important than the fact that "the voters have spoken" and the new government has "owned up to the moral standard that America was built on."

How about Funnye? He stepped to the microphone and said, "Ditto."

Lopatin and Funnye were two of five rabbis, coming from all four denominations, who joined members of Congress at a Capitol Hill press conference sponsored by HIAS. The organization’s president and CEO, Gideon Aronoff, said there had already been "more progress than I could have even imagined" on the issue of immigration reform in the last two months.

"We see a sea change in approach" by the Obama administration, said Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of HIAS. He noted that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has, according to media reports, decided to focus more on prosecuting employers that are violating immigration laws rather than raiding businesses and arresting illegal workers, such as was done at the Postville kosher meat plant last year. He also pointed to a recent decision by Homeland Security to release 27 immigrants arrested in a February raid and give them temporary legal work permits.

One of the primary goals of the campaign, launched in January, was to urge the Obama administration to change the previous policy of relying on raids as the primary methods of immigration enforcement.

Rabbi Amy Schwartzman of Reform Temple Rodef Shalom said progress also had been made because of the efforts of the 13 national and dozen local Jewish to publicize its importance.

"The opportunity for this issue to be at the seder table is progress at the very least," said Schwartzman.

Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) also joined the call for a path to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the U.S. The group wants to see congressional passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation by the end of 2009.

Aronoff said the coalition was not deterred by the economy and the many other pressing issues on the country’s plate right now, because he said immigration reform will help the economy.

"There is no practical way, nor moral way to remove 12 million immigrants" from the U.S., he said. "These people are here."

"The question is will they working legally, protected by labor laws, supported by our government — or in the shadows," he said. "If individual workers are out of the shadows, they will have more rights, there will be less pressure on wages" and that will bolster the economy, Aronoff argued.

Also speaking at Thursday’s press conference were the executive director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, Jane Ramsey; Minnesota Conservative Rabbi Morris Allen, the founder of the Heksher Tzedek ethical kashrut initiative; and Maryland Reconstructionist Rabbi Doug Heifetz.

National sponsors of the "Progress by Pesach" initiative include the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Jewish Labor Commitee, the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Union for Reform Judaism, Uri l’Tzedek: The Orthodox Social Justice Movement and Women of Reform Judaism.