Jumah Visit

Friends,

We know what it means to be strangers. As Jews, know what it’s like to be persecuted because of our faith. We know what it’s like to refugees in search of safe haven. Based in the Torah’s repeated command to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,” we know to stand up in the face of oppression. We stand with all the major Jewish movements — Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, and Reconstructionist — in condemning the President’s executive order imposing a ban on immigrants and refugees specifically from Muslim countries. We reject religious prejudice, knowing that an attack on one religion is an attack on all.

Last Friday, the day of that the President signed the executive order, we commemorated International Holocaust Memorial Day. While our families came to this country as immigrants, we were reminded of how the United States closed its doors to so many others fellow Jews, failing — along with the international community — to protect the victims of the Holocaust. Once again our country is closing its doors to immigrants and refugees. In the face of this violation of our values as Jews and Americans it is upon us to respond.

Many in our community have been opposing this executive action through protests and advocacy. That is important work that and needs to be continued. And I’d like to offer another way to stand with our Muslim and immigrant neighbors and express our Torah values. Visit a Muslim immigrant community.  This Friday afternoon, Rabbi Friedman and I and a small group of rabbis and other Jews will be attending jumah prayer services at the Al Furqan mosque in Northeast Philadelphia, which serves a mainly immigrant Muslim population.  The service begins at 1:15 PM and ends at about 2:00 PM.  

If you would like to join us, or if you would like to learn about other ways to support the immigrant and refugee communities in Philadelphia, please be in touch with me.

Rabbi Yosef Goldman

Tags: Immigrants, Muslim, Neighbors, Prayer, Refugees