MY SAY: A PERSPECTIVE ON REFUGEES
FROM THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF MIDEAST OUTPOST
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/a-perspective-on-refugees-ruth-king.html
In 1924, after decades of free immigration from Europe, America enacted the Johnson-Reed Immigration Law which limited groups considered racially and ethnically “undesirable.” These were code words for Jews, Southern and Eastern Europeans, Africans, Arabs and Asians. When President Coolidge signed the law, his words were “America must remain American.”
It was scrupulously enforced on July 6, 1938 when an international conference convened in Evian, France to deal with Jewish refugees desperate to flee the racial laws of Germany and Austria which sought to make their nations judenrein— free of all Jews. But Jewish refugees found no succor from Western nations. With the British blockade of Palestine, Europe’s Jews were trapped and one of every three Jews in the world died during the Nazi genocide.
After World War II millions of people fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe. Many fled the Soviet controlled Communist tyrannies. Others, such as the displaced surviving Jews, found no welcome when they returned to their previous homes. Millions of Germans–even those that had lived in Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Czechoslovakia long before the war–were expelled. It has been estimated that in the peak year of 1946, about 14,000 people per day became stateless refugees.
Europe was devastated by the death and destruction wrought by the war. Food and housing were scarce and throughout the continent refugees and survivors were kept in displaced persons camps. American policy in the immediate post-war period limited immigration to those who had friends or relatives who could sponsor them and guarantee they would not become dependent on government assistance. This policy changed in 1948 when restrictions were eased by the Displaced Persons Act which offered sanctuary to refugees from Communist nations of Eastern Europe.
Restrictions were further relaxed in The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and The Refugee Relief Act of 1953. By 1959 one million European refugees had been absorbed by free European countries, 476,000 had been accepted by the U.S. and another half million by Latin America and Asia. The bulk of Jewish refugees found a home in a liberated and independent Israel.
World Refugee Year, in 1959-1960, was designed as a ‘clear the camps’ drive. By the end of 1960, all the refugee camps of Europe were closed.
The only exceptions were the squalid “Arab refugee” camps established in 1948. In them 500,000 Arabs and their descendants, courtesy of the UN and their so-called “Arab brethren”, have been kept in sorry conditions for the last 68 years.
What made the Jewish refugees “undesirable” in 1924 is a question to ponder, particularly now that the word “refugee” is flagrantly abused by those prepared to destroy Western civilization through immigration.
From 1880 until 1924 approximately four million Jews arrived in America. Their contributions to every aspect of American culture–science, medicine, theater, music, cultural and philanthropic institutions– was outsize in every way. And if a well-known Jew committed a felony or murder, the shame and outrage was also disproportionate.
Although clustered in crowded and poor neighborhoods, Jews demanded no charity and depended on the help of Jewish organizations for settlement, schooling and medical care. They created the garment industry and pioneered in trade, retail and wholesale manufacturing and construction. Indeed it’s hard to think of any aspect of American life to which American Jews did not make a significant contribution. They attended night schools, learned English, participated in politics and gave their children anglicized names. Malka became Marilyn, Moshe became Marvin, Shmuel became Scott. They delighted in entertainment, told self-deprecating Jewish jokes and were pioneers in the labor union movement.
There are many Jews today who insist that the plight of Jews in 1938 and the failure of Americans to take them in means that Jews are obligated to accept large numbers of the tsunami of Moslem refugees from Syria and Iraq who have all but invaded Europe. In Scandinavia, France, Germany, England, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Moslems are wreaking havoc in the nations that gave them unlimited entry.
How false a comparison! Did Jewish refugees—any of them–call non-believers “infidels” deserving death? Did they demand that the Constitution be replaced by Rabbinic law, with Supreme Court Justices ordered to wear yarmulkes? Did their little shuls and large synagogues–Orthodox, Conservative or Reform–ever preach terrorism? Did Jews engage in honor killings? Did they pillage and riot and rape?
Of course not. Peaceful Moslems live in America freely, and some express their piety by wearing scarves and face coverings as Jews wear religious garb. But where is their outrage at terror committed against innocents by their coreligionists?
Poorly vetted, unrestricted immigration from Moslem nations is a security risk. It’s not Islamophobia to say so. And there’s no valid comparison to the history of Jewish refugees.
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