This past week, Alexander Rapaport, the director of Masbia soup kitchen, supported his Yemeni neighbors in protesting President Trump\u2019s executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. In response, he lost donors, including one who wrote, \u201cAfter seeing\u2026that you protested President Trump\u2019s executive order, and thus shamefully sided with those who are putting American lives in danger, I am no longer able to donate to your organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
I try to be nonpartisan in these pieces, so I will not opine on the merits (or lack thereof) of President Trump\u2019s executive order, focusing instead on Mr. Rapaport, who in my opinion has got it exactly right, one\u2019s personal politics notwithstanding. The JTA reported that Rapaport\u2019s \u201cexperience being the victim of anti-Semitism forces him to call out hatred against others.\u201d Even if one feels that the president\u2019s executive order is absolutely the right course of action, how could one object those motives?<\/p>\n
I would like to share two true stories to illustrate a point.<\/p>\n
Story number one:<\/p>\n
Once, walking on Shabbos, my family and some friends were passed by an African-American family. The young son, perhaps seven or eight years of age, said hello and the seven of us walking together all greeted him back. The child turned to his mother and said, \u201cYou told me if I said hi, they wouldn\u2019t say anything!\u201d We were taken aback by this assumption and tried to engage the mother in conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhy would you think that?\u201d we asked her but the mother \u2013 probably embarrassed that we unintentionally showed her up in front of her kids \u2013 hustled her family away as quickly as possible. (Ironically, she did not reply when we addressed her.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Story number two:<\/p>\n I needed a temp in my office, so I hired a friend of my friends who needed some part-time work. When she showed up, she created a not-so subtle stir, no doubt because of her hijab. All the right people (my boss, human resources, etc.) were perfectly fine with her but a couple of my coworkers voiced their displeasure to me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Here was a woman who attended a school that was a division of a Jewish university. She crashed for six months on my Jewish friends\u2019 couch. She helped to care for my ailing father a number of times when his home health aide was off. She had no problem with Jews but to some of my colleagues she was unacceptable simply because she chose to practice the religion in which she was raised. I was appalled.<\/em><\/p>\n Were you offended by the assumptions and stereotyping in story #1? If so, I hope you were at least as offended by story #2!<\/p>\n The Torah wants us to have empathy. Regarding converts, it tells us \u201cYou shall not oppress a stranger since you know what it\u2019s like to be a stranger, seeing that you were strangers in the land of Egypt\u201d (Exodus 23:9). Similarly, the Jewish version of the \u201cgolden rule\u201d is phrased in a way that stresses empathy \u2013 \u201cThat which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow\u201d (Shabbos 31a).<\/p>\n Back to Rapaport who, as noted, is a man who gets it. He previously lost donations because some of his donors objected that Masbia, a strictly kosher soup kitchen, serves anyone, not just coreligionists. Rapaport told the JTA, \u201cI don\u2019t want to take anyone\u2019s money under false pretense. Yes, I am personally very pro-immigrant, and if that makes me unqualified for your donation, please don\u2019t give it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n I have friends who strongly support the executive order, seeing it as a necessary stopgap measure to protect American citizens from those who would do us harm. I have other friends who vehemently decry the measure as xenophobic and Islamophobic. I hear both sides and I don\u2019t need all my friends to be in political lockstep. What\u2019s important to me is not the what so much as the why. If someone supported or opposed the ban for hateful reasons, I would disagree with them on the why even if we agreed on the what.<\/p>\n When I read about Rapaport, I see someone who has got it so right on the why that I would like to think people could overlook disagreeing on the what. Sadly, such is not the case.<\/p>\n Jews have been on the receiving end of baseless hatred since time immemorial. From blood libels to The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion<\/i>, so much smack has been talked about us that we know isn\u2019t true. (We don\u2019t<\/i> have horns and many of us do<\/i> say hello on the street!) We should be the first ones to dismiss stereotypes about others.<\/p>\n Right, left or in between, have whatever politics you like but for the right reasons. Don\u2019t let hate and fear cloud your choices. And when we disagree \u2013 as will happen \u2013 try to focus on what\u2019s in a person\u2019s heart. It\u2019s our responsibility. In the words of Dr. Seuss in The Lorax<\/i>, \u201cUnless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This past week, Alexander Rapaport, the director of Masbia soup kitchen, supported his Yemeni neighbors in protesting President Trump\u2019s executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. In response, he lost donors, including one who wrote, \u201cAfter seeing\u2026that you protested President Trump\u2019s executive order, and thus shamefully sided with those who are putting American lives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-op-ed"],"yoast_head":"\n