The Syrian Refugee Crisis

The Syrian refugee crisis has divided American politics but united American Jewry. With state politicians taking strong stands on both sides, the polarizing question of whether to open our doors to Syrian refugees has created yet another wonderful opportunity for color-coded US maps (mellow yellow = welcoming refugees, orange = NOT welcoming refugees, noncommittal gray = not committing). But a similar map of American Jewry would look relatively monochromatic – for us, the notion of turning our backs to the persecuted hits too close to home. Many have drawn parallels between Syrian refugees and Jews running from Nazi persecution, likening recent anti-immigration rhetoric to opinions expressed by western leaders at the Evian Conference in 1938.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the National Director of the ADL, urged governors who oppose Syrian immigration to reconsider, explaining that “to do otherwise signals to the terrorists that they are winning the battle against democracy and freedom.” Along with other Jewish organizations, the ADL has created the Jewish Coalition for Syrian Refugees, a group dedicated to providing aid to refugees and promoting “fair and humane immigration policies.” Paul Anticoni, executive director of World Jewish Relief, appealed to the British government to accept more refugees, citing his characteristically Jewish “empathy of looking after the stranger” and “desire to assist, irrespective of the nationality of the
So the basis of the law is biological – a person is a Jew if he or she is at least partially of a certain ethnicity. Moreover, the law has a religiously discriminatory aspect. A biological Jew who practices a religion other than Judaism can be disqualified from immigrating under the Law of Return. So this law explicitly favors a certain racial and religious group of people over all others, offering it preferential treatment with regards to naturalization. This policy seems to violate widely held conceptions of discrimination in America. Imagine if the US were to alter its immigration policy such as to provide automatic immigration and citizenship to any person with at least one white Christian grandparent. No doubt, mainstream Americans would see an immigration policy that explicitly favored white people as anathema to everything the country stands for. To advocate for such a policy would be political suicide. Why is Israel