JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Easier aliyah?

By Uriel Heilman · October 28, 2008

Is Israel making it easier for North Americans who move to Israel? The Jerusalem Post has a story today that suggests Israel’s Absorption Ministry has become more Anglo-friendly, streamlining some of the bureaucratic paperwork and generally making it easier for North Americans to move to Israel and land on their feet. Is this true? We invite our readers for have experienced this to respond.

Here’s an excerpt for the JPost story:

“It is a huge benefit for new immigrants,” says one expert. “The whole process today is hugely different to how it was in the past. Even the basket of aliya benefits was just a dream when I made aliya in 1975. It only existed for those who came from countries of distress.”

Part of the changes, he claims, come from improved technology enabling those about to make aliya to be processed in their native country and have much of the fine details of their immigration worked out beforehand.

“Anyone who arrives today can go straight to the Immigrant Absorption Ministry’s office in the airport and receive their ID card and immigration ID before they even pick up their luggage,” he says. “All that’s left for the immigrant to do is to go to the ministry’s offices to give them their new bank account details and to receive a voucher for ulpan.”

1 Comment | Share This | Immigration, Israel

Head of HIAS speaks at rally in Postville

By Ami Eden · July 28, 2008

Sue Fishkoff was in Postville, Iowa for yesterday’s rally there on behalf of the workers at Agriprocessors. Click here for her story.

Perhaps the biggest name from the Jewish organizational world to take part was Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of HIAS. Here’s the text of his speech:

Statement of Gideon Aronoff
President and CEO, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
Postville Iowa, July 27, 2008

Why are we all here in Postville on this Sunday afternoon?  The simple answer can be found in the lessons of the Hebrew Bible - in the book of Genesis - where we are taught that we are - in fact - “our brothers’ keepers.”

This core Jewish teaching goes far in explaining the fundamental Jewish commitment to vulnerable refugees and immigrants of all faiths and backgrounds.  We at HIAS, the American Jewish community’s international migration agency, have sought for 127 years to put these values into action.  As both Americans and as Jews, we have worked to ensure that our country’s immigration laws reflect the promise that the great American-Jewish poet and HIAS volunteer, Emma Lazarus, described in her poem The New Colossus – “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free…”

We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.  We are responsible.  As Americans, we are responsible to see that our country addresses its problems directly, and does not simply dump them on the backs of the Mexican and Guatemalan immigrant workers at Agriprocessors, or on the community of Postville that they called home.

The raid at AgriProcessors should not have happened.  Last year the President and Congress had a chance to fix our broken immigration system and create a new legal immigration system that honors core American values and serves essential American interests.  They failed to live up to their responsibilities.

By now, millions of undocumented workers – including those arrested at AgriProcessors – who came to the United States simply to work and support their families – not to harm this country – should have been on the path to legal status and potentially citizenship.  This would have been a long process, with appropriate penalties, but the immigrant workers would have been out of the shadows, able to fight exploitation, and as legal residents able to call on the government to protect them.

The AgriProcessors raid is part of the legacy of failed immigration reform.  Instead of a national solution to a national problem, we now have a mishmash of state and local immigration proposals, scattershot raids, unworkable solutions like the border fence, and billions of dollars spent chasing after undocumented immigrant workers.  Employers who need more immigrant workers than the tiny quota our law provides still have no legal avenues.  Fundamentally, we must recognize that we cannot enforce our way out of this problem.  The economic and social forces that drive immigration to the United States and around the world are simply far too strong.

The people of Postville are bearing the brunt of this federal non policy.  For the undocumented workers, the punishment does not fit the crime.  Criminal prosecution and months of jail time are not morally appropriate.  There was no intent to harm anyone – they were simply playing by the rules of our defacto illegal immigration system.  Now many of the workers sit in jail, families are separated and others live in fear that they may be next.  And for the community of Postville – the schools, the businesses, the churches – the raid has meant massive dislocation and harm to a once thriving small town.

The raid at AgriProcessors typifies what our country faces in the wake of national failure on immigration reform.  For many of those in the Jewish community who have yet to join in the mobilization for immigration reform, the raid is a wake up call.  The kosher meat produced here sustains life for so many.  We must pay attention to how this product is produced.

If, as alleged, AgriProcessors violated labor, health and safety laws then they should be prosecuted to protect their workers – legal and undocumented alike – and the entire community.  If AgriProcessors, like countless employers across the country, relied on undocumented workers to fill vital labor needs then they should be penalized, not just the workers.  But more importantly for the future of our country, a rational relationship must be created between our economic realities and our immigration laws.

We in the Jewish community are taught the preeminent importance of welcoming, protecting and loving the stranger.  We remember the thousands of years of expulsion and dispersion of Jewish history where we were forced by anti-Semitism and poverty to migrate in search of security, freedom and opportunity.

These lessons – and our community’s interests in pluralism, economic vitality, social integration and security – compel us to insist on humane and just treatment of immigrants.  We also must work to end to the chaos, violence, death and exploitation that come from the failure to fix our broken immigration system.  The government must take responsibility and do its job. But we in the Jewish community – and all in the broader American community – must also heed the biblical injunction to be our brothers’ keepers.

Our values and our interests require that we care for the stranger – the immigrant – when he or she is in need.  We also must and stand with Postville and other communities across the country that have been devastated by raids and failed immigration policy.  These are the new frontlines of the immigration struggle.  And that is why I, and we, are here today.

1 Comment | Share This | Agriprocessors, Immigration, Kashrut

AJC to Cable networks: Say no to immigrant bashers

By Ami Eden · February 15, 2008

We still can’t believe that Abe Foxman and Lou Dobbs won’t say anything about the CNN host’s recent bashing of the ADL (these aren’t exactly guys you associate with “no comment").

But American Jewish Committee is now wading into the debate, with a statement criticizing some of the guests on Dobbs’ program and other cable shows:

AJC Appeals to Cable TV Executives to End Airing of Anti-Immigrant Hate

February 15, 2008 – New York – The American Jewish Committee is urging the heads of major cable television networks to ensure that the background of certain so-called immigration experts appearing on news shows is revealed to the viewing audience.

“It is inappropriate and offensive for major television programs to provide a microphone to individuals and organizations that promote hate, espouse vigilantism, white supremacy, or even violence in the immigration debate,” AJC General Counsel Jeffrey Sinensky wrote in a letter to the heads of CNN, FOX and MSNBC.

“There is no excuse for television talk show hosts and commentators failing to investigate the backgrounds of the people they invite on their shows to speak on the issue of immigration.”

The AJC letter was delivered today to Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide; Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of FOX News Corporation; and Phil Griffin, executive-in-charge of MSNBC. AJC has partnered with the National Council of La Raza and its “We Can Stop the Hate” campaign launched recently to counter the increasing rhetoric on the airwaves that already has caused a rise in hate crimes against Latinos.

AJC pointed out specifically that Lou Dobbs Tonight, The O’Reilly Factor, and MSNBC News Live offer national platforms to spokespeople who represent known vigilante or hate-promoting groups, including Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox of the Minuteman Project and Dan Stein of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

They regularly appear on news programs as anti-immigration “expert commentators” and pundits.  “Rarely is their status as a representative of a vigilante group or one that promotes hate acknowledged or challenged. Rarely do they face anyone with an opposing viewpoint,” said Sinensky.

In addition, the AJC letter noted that spokespeople espousing vigilantism and fear regularly appear on nightly news programs. They often speak in code, calling immigrants “criminals,” “an army of invaders,” and “diseased”; and children born to immigrants are referred to as “anchor babies.” Many talk show hosts and commentators parrot this hate speech on their broadcasts.

“Hate speech has no legitimate role in the media. History has shown repeatedly that it can be the precursor to violence,” said Sinensky. “Issues such as immigration can be explored legitimately and thoroughly without demonizing an entire group of people.”

AJC, the oldest human relations organization in the U.S., has been a longstanding advocate for fair and open immigration, and a strong supporter of comprehensive immigration reform.

0 Comments | Share This | Immigration, Media

Dobbs calls ADL a joke, Olbermann calls Dobbs worst person in the world

By Ami Eden · February 7, 2008

Just to recap: On Monday night, in a debate with Janet Murguia of the National Council of La Raza, Lou Dobbs accused the ADL of being an “absolute advocate group for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.” Then he took another shot:

Well, on Thursday night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann fired back, giving his daily “Worst Person in the World” award to Dobbs.

8 Comments | Share This | Hate, Immigration, Jewish Orgs, video

Lou Dobbs calls ADL “a joke”

By Daniel Sieradski · February 6, 2008

In the midst of an on-air debate Monday night with Janet Murguia, an immigrants’ rights activist from the National Council of La Raza (which recently launched a campaign to combat hate speech against immigrants), CNN’s Lou Dobbs called the Anti-Defamation League “a joke” and an “absolute advocate group for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.”

The ADL, which was cited by Murguia as “an outstanding organization,” has previously chided Dobbs for “spread[ing] false propaganda about how immigrants are harming the United States.”

The ADL has yet to comment on Dobbs’ remarks.

Video here. Transcript here.

(Hat tip to Greg Siskind.)

6 Comments | Share This | Hate, Immigration, Jewish Orgs