Token

Though my Bubbe was an actress in the Yiddish theater (family lore has it that my Zayde was a stage door Johnny) my genes do not cry out for the spotlight. And yet at a recent press conference concerning legislation that would adversely affect immigrants, I was the token Jew in front of the camera. Knees knocking as I awaited my turn to speak, I tried to channel Bubbe D.

I had channeled her and Zayde only two months earlier in testimony during a committee hearing on the same bill. I hadn't intended to speak as I did not think I could add to my colleagues' testimonies, but as Legislator X interrogated two of the gentlemen, my heart started racing. Each of these men spoke in Spanish and had an interpreter. To the first one Leg. X said, "Obviously, you're an immigrant, (obviously?) I don't know if you're documented or not, but I have to ask how long have you been in this country?"

And to the second man, "I studied sociology in college and I know something about acculturation, so I have to ask, how long have you been here?" At this point I flew out of my seat, filled out a speaking card, and handed it to the deputy clerk.

"I've been hearing that this bill is not about race, but I have to wonder when people are asked how long they have been in this country.
My grandfather was ordained as a Rabbi in Europe, but when he finally was able to get here, did he work as a Rabbi? No. He drove a grocery truck.
Did he speak English? Enough to work his route.
Some of his family never made it out of Europe and burned in Hitler's ovens.
Did my Bubbe speak English? Not much.
Did they pay taxes? Yes.
Did they raise six successful children who became lawyers, and doctors and business people. Yes."
Applause. Move over Scarlet Johansson.

I was so impassioned I forgot to say that as a former ESOL teacher I would lay money on a bet that if either of those two men had children here their English would be as good as that of my sons. Maybe even better.

At the press conference, this week of Passover, I said that we remember that we were once strangers in a strange land. After seeing that part on the nightly news, my future ex-husband said that I looked angry. I thought I was just being serious. My mother-in-law said that my hair looked nice before asking me to explain what I meant.

This is code for "I disagree and that is why we are trying to sell our home near the beach as the town is being overtaken by people who don't speak English." I think some people are unaware of how long it might have taken their parents or grandparents to learn English.

Others angrily pronounce,"My grandparents came here legally. So should they." I hope that's true because maybe if I ask ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) they will deputize me to check all those documents. It would be interesting since after 1924 when a quota was imposed on WHITE Europeans, thousands of people sneaked in to the U.S.. Imagine the nerve! Escaping potato famine, or death squads, or mafia control of their village, people came here illegally!

I continued, "We also say 'Let all who are hungry come and eat' and so it was that at Sunday’s seder I sat across from a man named Levy. Miguel Enriquez Levy. I’m sure his language skills would have impressed LegislatorX. Mr. Levy speaks Spanish, English, Hebrew and Ladino. He was born in Leningrad, Russia (It's St. Petersberg now, hope the feds have their historical maps available) and grew up in Mexico. His grandfather was Moroccan. What a puzzle he would be for ICE.

65 years ago this week, 750 Jews trapped in the Warsaw ghetto rose up against the Nazis. They were hopelessly outmanned and outgunned: pistols and Molotov cocktails against tanks and divisions of soldiers. Today, according to the twisted logic of the department of Homeland Security, the few survivors of the ghetto would have been refused entry to the US. Clearly, something is wrong with immigration policy, but this bill is not going to fix it or _______'s
(please insert your town, state, country) economic woes."

It is up to the feds to fix immigration with comprehensive, sensible solutions. People are here in the goldene medina because they left a country where they were
living, no, subsiding, on $2 dollars per day.
Or they left a town that was taken over by monocropping and agribusiness due to our country's insatiable need to have cheap beef or strawberries in January.
G-d forbid protein should be a condiment and not a six ounce slab on our plates every night or we have to wait for summer for certain fruits.
Or they came from a maquiladora town on the US border with Mexico, a result of NAFTA,
as corporations shipped jobs there so we could get cheap goods from that big box store that starts with a W.
Then they lost their jobs when the big box found that it would be cheaper to buy from China.

So here are my questions for this week of Pesach:
Where are the Rabbi Heschel's of this generation? We are the people of the prophets who cried out for social justice.
Why do I read anti-immigration letters in the press and get such emails written by Jews? Have we forgotten what happened to our people when the Federal government of this country did not have just immigration laws?
Why was I the token Jew?
Why was the Unitarian minister quoting the "golden rule," and why was another Pastor quoting Leviticus and Rabbi Akiva? Because we taught the world about Tzedakah. And we are forgetting it now.
My final question is Rabbi Hillel's...If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am for myself only than what am I? If not now, when?