The Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) yesterday became the first Jewish religious organization to join Christian denominations in endorsing the sanctuary movement and opposing the deportation of Central American refugees from the United States.
Some 3,000 delegates from across the U.S. and Canada voted at the UAHC’s biennial general assembly to support the sanctuary movement despite “serious legal implications” of providing “support, protection and advocacy” for illegal aliens.
By a two-to-one margin the UAHC called on its 791 synagogues to furnish material and financial aid to Central American refugees and to join legal efforts to overturn the Reagan Administration’s policy of deporting them.
Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum, whose Temple Emanu-El in Tucson, Ariz. is part of the sanctuary movement, told the convention that his temple “provides every form of aid and support short of housing.” Jury selection is underway in a federal court in Tucson in a case involving II people, including Roman Catholic and Protestant clergymen, accused of operating an underground railroad for refugees in flight from persecution and possible death in El Salvador and Guatemala.
The Reform resolution began by citing Leviticus 19:33 about loving sojourning strangers in your own land. “While we acknowledge that religious institutions do not stand outside the law,” the resolution said, “the selective interpretation of the law and the human tragedies that have resulted from that interpretation call for a moral response from us as Jews.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
