U.S. Jewish Community is Becoming Involved in the Sanctuary Movement

“I am the son of an undocumented alien,” declared Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum to a small group of reporters and sanctuary movement activists during a recent visit to the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue.

The Tucson, Arizona, rabbi, sometimes referred to warmly as the “mother of the movement,” repeats his oft-told story of how his father arrived in the United States from Europe in 1913 as a stowaway and was nearly deported.

“The slaves who fled north in our country and the Jews who attempted to flee Nazi Germany found no refuge,” he continued. “We believe that communities of faith are now being called again to obey God by providing sanctuary to the refugees among us.”

With the much-publicized federal trial of the two Roman Catholic priests, a nun, a Presbyterian minister and church lay workers accused of smuggling aliens into the U.S. beginning to wind down in Tucson, Weizenbaum has begun to travel throughout the East Coast as part of a national tour of rabbis active in the sanctuary movement.

The tour is sponsored by the New Jewish Agenda. It includes Rabbis Charles Feinberg of Madison, Wisconsin and Judea Miller of Rochester, New York. Participating at the recent meeting in New York were such prominent New York rabbis as Marshall Meyer of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, and Balfour Brickner, the spiritual head of the Stephen Wise Synagogue. Supporters of providing sanctuary for Central American refugees are going directly against Reagan Administration policy, as interpreted through the 1980 Refugee Act. It provides U.S. asylum to anyone with a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion” if returned to their homeland.

The Reagan Administration maintains that the vast majority of refugees who are entering the country illegally from Central America are not fleeing war or oppression but are seeking a better life here and may be competing with U.S. citizens for jobs.

Precise figures of the number of Central American refugees in the United States illegally are not available, but experts place the number at 500,000 to 600,000, most of them Salvadorans and Guatemalans.

According to the New Jewish Agenda (NJA), less than three percent of the Salvadorans who have applied have been granted asylum. By contrast, the NJA contends that the figure for refugees from Communist countries is 80 percent.

Sanctuary supporters are asking that Central American refugees be granted “extended voluntary departure” status, which would give them the right to live and work in the United States until it is safe to return to their homelands. The NJA noted that similar status has been extended to refugees from many countries, including Poland and Afghanistan.

JEWISH GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE MOVEMENT

Until recently, the sanctuary movement had been primarily based in the Catholic Church and among Protestant denominations, but the organized Jewish community has become more involved with the issue.

The principle of sanctuary for Central American refugees has been endorsed by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform), the Rabbinical Assembly of America (Conservative), the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform).

All together, about 270 Jewish, Protestant and Catholic congregations around the country offer sanctuary to Central Americans, all in defiance of U.S. government policy. Temple Emanu-El, Rabbi Weizenbaum’s synagogue, is one of more than 20 Jewish congregations and organizations to offer sanctuary and pledge support to Central American refugees.

Albert Vorspan, senior vice president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) and director of its social action committee, also addressed the sanctuary issue at the Stephen Wise Synagogue. He emphasized that the Jewish community is “behind us” in support of the sanctuary movement.

According to Vorspan, the UAHC resolution in support of sanctuary to Central American refugees was overwhelmingly endorsed by some 3,000 delegates from across the country and Canada at the UAHC’s biennial general assembly last November in Los Angeles. “The people are behind us and ready to take action,” he said.

The UAHC resolution called on its 791 synagogues to furnish material and financial aid to Central American refugees and to join legal efforts to overturn the Administration’s policy of deporting them. The resolution urged its member synagogues to do this despite “serious legal implications.”

The 53-year-old Weizenbaum was asked how he responds to people who ask about the illegal nature of the sanctuary movement, risking arrest and possible jail sentences for their activities. He said he would ask those people to pretend it is 1942 and it is a Christian family seeking to give sanctuary to a Jewish family during the Holocaust.

“If you as a Jew can look me in the eye and tell me you would advise the Christian family to not give sanctuary to a Jewish family during the war because it was illegal,” he said, then he could not argue with that person. But, he added, “It is an ethical decision.”