This week I
spent a great deal of my time thinking about children. On Tuesday morning I received a phone call
from a member of a synagogue in Boston who wanted to tell me about a refugee
child from Iraq who was moving with his family to join the Yazidi community
here in Lincoln. The child, now age 4,
had been severely burned years ago when
a heater exploded in his face while housed in a refugee camp where he and his
family were being protected from ISIS.
On
Wednesday, I attended a Lancaster County Faith Coalition Meeting that dealt
with the topic of child abuse and neglect.
It was presented because it was felt that many people do not know that
in the State of Nebraska, if an adult suspects that a child is being abused or
neglected, it is mandatory that the adult report it to the Department of Health
and Human Services or to the police. State law requires the report be made.
On Thursday,
I had another phone conversation about the refugee family moving to Lincoln and
their child who has undergone reconstructive facial surgery by loving doctors
affiliated with the Shrine Hospital in Boston.
We spoke about how much impact the actions of a community had when they
embraced the child and and what a bright and happy child he has become as a
result. When the now four-year old was first brought to this country by a
well-meaning organization, the UK based humanitarian aid group Road to Peace,
that wanted to secure him medical care, he was separated from his parents who
weren’t allowed to enter the U.S. because of a ban on entry by individuals from
Iraq. Months went by with the then two-year
old child separated from his parents while undergoing surgery before their
request to enter the U.S. was finally approved.
The
conversation I had on Thursday, ended with the lovely woman on the other side
explaining to me her story as a child of the Holocaust who had been separated
from her parents and taken to Sweden as an infant. She understood the trauma involved when no
one spoke out about the inhumane treatment of Jews in her home country and the resulting
impact on her own life even though she survived in an orphanage.
On Friday, I
along with several others from Tifereth Israel, attended a vigil to protest the
inhumane conditions in which children are being held along our Southern
border. These children who are being brought
by parents attempting to find refuge in this country are being separated from
their parents and held in conditions without adequate space and provisions.
Sleeping on cement floors in overcrowded spaces without changes of underwear
and diapers, one can only imagine the trauma being experienced.
On Friday, I
also taught Lorena how to chant part of Eicha, the book of Lamentations, which
talks about the destruction of the Temple and the siege of Jerusalem which lay
in ruins. We learned verse 5 of chapter
1 which relates the horror the writer witnesses
by simply stating “Her infants have gone into captivity/Before the enemy.” The
first blow to the people of Israel, was to separate their children from their
families, to take them into captivity.
So when I think about the week
and how all of these pieces fit together, I make sense of it in the following
way: Children are among the most
vulnerable in society. They need
protection. When children are taken from
loving families through policies that do not worry about the trauma being
inflicted, our hearts should grieve. As
Jews, who understand that our children are our surety, we need to do whatever
we can to support the reunification of families and to acknowledge that all
human beings deserve humane living conditions which provide dignity and respect
for the fact that they are human. Statements such as : Providing dignity and respect,
understanding that children are vulnerable, and recognizing that children
forcibly removed from parents who are not abusing them are traumatized, are not
political statements. They are moral stands that I believe people of faith can
agree upon.
In today’s Torah portion,
Miriam dies. Miriam, the sister of
Moses, was an active nurturer of Moses and the Israelites. When genocide threatened Moses’ life and he
was put in a basket and sent down the Nile river, it was she who kept an eye on
the basket. It was she who suggested
that Moses’ mother be a nursemaid to the child rescued by the Pharoah’s
daughter. It was she who according to
the midrash, had a well of water that followed her on the travels through the
wilderness. When she died and was no longer
with the people, the water dried up.
Separating this mother of Israel from her people (even though it was by
death) left the people to suffer.
When infants go into captivity
as in Eicha, or mothers are separated from their children, as we note in the death
of Miriam this week, the results are tragic.
If we listen to our ancient literature, we must be stirred to caring and
action. We must remember that we are a
people that values life and children represent the future. The Faith Coalition will be publishing a
letter in the paper that states, “Immigration is a complex issue, but one thing
we should have in common is compassion for those who are in need, especially
children who are suffering.
People of faith regard humane
and just treatment of all persons as a moral
obligation. Organizations,
individuals and faith groups are responding in
various ways to provide
benevolent and professional care to meet the
immediate, intermediate and
long-term needs of immigrants and refugees,
and also to call for action to
guarantee basic human rights to all.”
The letter will provide a list
of resources that you can use to help alleviate the plight of the children
whose parents are seeking asylum. One
such agency is HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which helped so many of
our own families when they were faced with grave challenges in their homelands
and made their way to America. I hope we
each will take the time and effort make it known that we must end this
suffering.
Shabbat Shalom.
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