OPINION
Editorials Where is the progress on immigration reform?
I n a 5-4 ruling last week, the U.S.

Supreme Court blocked the lifting of a
Trump-era Title 42 order on immigration,
which left in place the federal directive
that has been used to prevent the entry
of millions of asylum seekers at the
southern border.

The Biden administration promised
to lift Title 42 — a public-health-based
order implemented at the beginning
of the COVID pandemic, which has
been used by both the Trump and the
Biden administrations to expel more
than 2 million migrants on public health
grounds. While the Biden administration
outwardly sought to terminate the
rule, it is actually breathing a grateful
sigh of relief at the Supreme Court’s
Title 42 extension. That’s because the
administration hasn’t yet developed a plan
to handle the mounting mass of migrants
gathering along the U.S.-Mexican border
and seeking asylum or other grounds to
enter America.

The United States is the destination
of choice for tens of thousands of
people from Latin America who are
fleeing violence, gangs, pover ty,
corruption and the depravity of their
own governments. But we have no
comprehensive plan in place to deal with
the ever-growing immigration demands.

And, even with Title 42 in place, the
migration wave has over whelmed
border states.

The last time this country made a
serious effort at immigration reform
in the Senate. Eighteen years later, as
the demand for entry from the south
has increased many-fold, there is still
no answer. Ever yone acknowledges
the problem.

The most affected states in this mess
are Republican-led. And the stunts
from those states — like Florida Gov.

THE UNITED STATES IS THE DESTINATION OF
CHOICE FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF
PEOPLE FROM LATIN AMERICA WHO ARE
FLEEING VIOLENCE, GANGS, POVERTY, CORRUPTION
AND THE DEPRAVITY OF THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS.

was in 2005, in a bill co-sponsored
by Republican Sen. John McCain and
Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. Their
effort was supported by President George
W. Bush. But the bill never got a vote
Ron DeSantis sending two planeloads
of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in
Massachusetts in September and Texas
Gov. Greg Abbott sending three busloads
of migrants to Washington, D.C., on
Christmas — are offensive. But the off-
putting moves by Southern governors
are driven by genuine frustration. Their
states are unable to cope with the many
challenges presented by rising migrant
numbers, and there is no federal plan
to help.

Nearly two years ago, President Joe
Biden appointed Vice President Kamala
Harris as his “border czar” to tackle the
immigration crisis. We don’t know what
the vice president has done regarding
that assignment. But we do know that
since Biden took office in 2021, we
have seen increasing levels of migrant
crossings, further inundating a border
already heavily strained by irregular
migration and an overwhelmed asylum-
processing system. It is clear that the
longer the problem is not addressed
with a comprehensive plan, the worse it
is going to get.

The Supreme Cour t bought the
administration some additional time to
get its immigration act together. We
call on the administration to develop
an updated, comprehensive and realistic
immigration policy. JN
George Santos should resign
B efore and during his recent
campaign for of fice, incoming
Republican Rep. George Santos of
Long Island, N.Y., claimed to be
“half-Jewish.” He also claimed to be a
“Latino Jew.” He said that his maternal
grandfather was originally from Ukraine
and fled to Brazil to escape the Nazis.

He also said that his grandparents
converted to Catholicism during the
rise of Nazism in Belgium after fleeing
Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.

“It’s a story of survival, of tenacity, of
grit, as we like to call it,” he said, and
he told prospective voters how proud he
was of it.

On Monday, Dec. 26, as Santos
backtracked on numerous other claims
he has made regarding his educational
background, employment history and
involvement in charitable work, he
clarified his connection to Judaism:
He now says that he is Jew-ish. And
he says, “I never claimed to be Jewish.

I am Catholic.” But since he believed
that his maternal family had some kind
of a Jewish connection, he felt that
he was entitled to say he is “Jew-ish.”
And he can’t understand why anyone
would think such a claim is worthy
of criticism.

Last month’s concessions by Santos
were prompted by numerous reports —
bolstered by detailed analyses from several
genealogists and historians — that Santos’
campaign claims of Jewish lineage were
York City, he was a “seasoned Wall
Street financier and investor” (having
worked for Citigroup and Goldman
Sachs) and achieved success in
his family-owned real estate business and
leadership in a successful animal-rescue
charity. None of that was true. And
WHEN VOTERS WENT TO THE POLLS IN
NOVEMBER TO ELECT A REPRESENTATIVE IN NEW
YORK’S REDRAWN 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT,
WHICH IS HOME TO A SIZEABLE JEWISH POPULATION,
THEY ELECTED A MAN WHO IS CLEARLY NOT THE
PERSON HE REPEATEDLY CLAIMED TO BE.

not true. They also say he fabricated his
family’s history with the Nazis. He now
admits that he lied about several aspects
of his own history.

In Santos’ fabricated resume, he
graduated from Baruch College in New
to make matters worse, other records
indicate that during the time Santos
claimed to have attended Baruch College,
he was with his mother in Brazil, where
he confessed to involvement in financial
fraud and was later charged in a case that
prosecutors say is unresolved. Santos
is also being investigated by federal
prosecutors from the Eastern District of
New York, the Nassau County district
attorney and the New York attorney
general’s office.

Santos is a colorful figure. He says
of himself: “I’m a free thinker. I’m
Latino. I’m gay. I’m Jewish. I do what
I want. I don’t fit in the boxes that
they want me to fit in.” But when
voters went to the polls in November
to elect a representative in New York’s
redrawn 3rd Congressional District,
which is home to a sizeable Jewish
population, they elected a man who
is clearly not the person he repeatedly
claimed to be.

Santos’ victor y helped deliver a
narrow Republican majority in the
House, and his success was celebrated
as “the full embodiment of the
American dream.” Santos now admits
to being a fraud. His American
dream has become an expanding
nightmare. He will do himself and the
voters in New York’s 3rd Congressional
District a ser vice by resigning
from office. JN
A NOTE ON OPINION
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in these opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Community Foundation, Center for Jewish
Philanthropy, Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, Mid-Atlantic Media or the staff of the Jewish News. Letters must respond to content published by the Jewish News and should be a maximum
of 200 words. They may be edited for space and clarity. Unsigned letters will not be published. Letters and op-ed submissions should be sent to editor@jewishaz.com.

8 JANUARY 6, 2023
JEWISH NEWS
JEWISHAZ.COM



OPINION
Commentary Book bans, Ukraine and the end of Roe:
The year 2022 in Jewish ideas
ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL | JTA
J ewish eras can be defined by events (the fall
of the Second Temple, the Inquisition, the
founding of Israel) and by ideas (the rabbinic
era, emancipation, post-denominationalism).

A community reveals itself in the things it
argues about most passionately.

It’s too early to tell what ideas will define this
era, although a look back at the big debates
of 2022 suggests Jews in North America will
be discussing a few issues for a long time: the
resurgence of antisemitism, the boundaries of
free speech, the red/blue culture wars.

Below are eight of some of the key debates
of the past year as (mostly) reflected in the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s opinion section
(which I have a hand in editing). They suggest,
above all, a community anxious about its
standing in the American body politic despite
its strength and self-confidence.

Antisemitism and the Black-Jewish alliance
The rapper Kanye West spread canards about
Jews and power. Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie
Irving shared an antisemitic film on Twitter.

And comedian Dave Chappelle made light
of both incidents on “Saturday Night Live,”
suggesting comics like him had more to fear
from cancellation than Jews did from rising
antisemitism. The central roles played in
these controversies by three African American
celebrities revived longstanding tensions
between two communities who haven’t been
able to count on their historic ties since the
end of the civil rights era. The war of words
was particularly vexing for Jews of color, like
the rabbi known as MaNishtana and Rabbi
Kendell Pinkney — who wondered whether
“my mixed Jewish child will grow up in an
America where she feels compelled to closet
aspects of her identity because society cannot
hold the wonder of her complexity.”
Jewish attitudes toward Ukraine
Russia’s war on Ukraine stirred up complex
feelings among Jews. It led to an outpouring
of support for the innocents caught up in
or sent fleeing by Russia’s invasion, and the
Jewish president who became their symbol
of defiance. It reinvigorated a Jewish rescue
apparatus that seemed to have been in
hibernation for years. And it probed Jews’
memories of their own historic suffering in
Ukraine, often at the hands of the ancestors
of those now under attack.

An image created by the AI site Dall-E for this article from the following prompt: “Collage featuring Jews,
robots, books and Ukraine.”
COURTESY OF JTA
Jews and the end of Roe v. Wade
In June the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to
overturn Roe v. Wade. It was an unthinkable
outcome for liberal Jewish activists, women
especially, who for 50 years and more had
regarded the right to an abortion as integral
to their Jewish identity and political worldview.

Before the decision came down, Jewish
studies scholar Michal Raucher questioned
long-held Jewish organizational views that
justified abortion only on the narrowest of
religious grounds without acknowledging
that women “have the bodily autonomy to
make that decision on their own.” Conversely,
Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel of America
welcomed the end of Roe on behalf of his
Haredi Orthodox organization, writing that
the rabbis “who guide us indisputably hold
that, absent extraordinary circumstances,
terminating a pregnancy is a grave sin.”
Responding to Shafran, Daphne Lazar Price,
an Orthodox Jewish feminist, argued that even
in her stringently religious community, getting
an abortion is a “conscious choice by women to
SEE SILOW-CARROLL, PAGE 10
Why we’ll fight Israel’s new extremist political agenda with the
determination of the Maccabees
RABBI RICK JACOBS| JTA
T he Book of Exodus tells
us that the penultimate
plague inflicted on Egypt,
the plague of darkness,
was one of the worst. The
16th-century Italian commentator Sforno,
who lived in the aftermath of the Inquisition
in Spain, wrote that the darkness went
beyond the mere absence of light: It was a
tangible darkness, a darkness you could feel.

We can empathize as we feel the darkness of
intolerance, hate, bigotry and zealotry today.

We kindled our lights during the eight days
of Chanukah to remember a time of darkness
so bleak that the Maccabees, cruelly oppressed
by Antiochus IV, could feel it. The Jews were a
tiny minority in the expansive, ancient Greco-
Syrian Empire. The Maccabees fought one
of the earliest battles for religious freedom.

Though they were vastly outnumbered, our
ancient heroes remained courageous and
determined. Today, we recognize that no nation is
immune to our era’s autocratic repression
of democracy, human rights and civil rights.

Battles against bigotry, hate and religious
intolerance are being fought in too many
places around the world, including in our
beloved Israel. With the same determination
JEWISHAZ.COM as the Maccabees, we must fight for religious
pluralism and equality in Israel with law and
democracy as our weapons and drive out
the darkness by bringing the light of equity,
compassion and justice.

Loud voices within the new Israeli
government are distinguished by their
hatred for those who are not like them:
non-Orthodox Jews, LGBTQ+ individuals,
Palestinian-Israeli citizens, Palestinians,
immigrants and others. The extremist
political agenda of this new government is
profoundly distressing, representing radical
policy shifts that are antithetical to the core
values of liberal Jews. We North American
Jews can either walk away or lean in with all
our might.

Some maintain that because the values
that used to bind Jews in the Diaspora to the
Jewish State are being replaced with extreme
ultra-nationalist and ultra-Orthodox policies,
it is time for liberal Jews to walk away from
the Zionist project. This would be a terrible
mistake: Zionism is more than what Israeli
politicians say or do. Authentic Judaism is
much more diverse and expansive than the
restrictive definitions of the ultra-Orthodox
Chief Rabbinate.

This is the moment for liberal Jews to fight
even harder for the Jewish State envisioned
in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Leaders of the new Israeli government are
hoping that we will abandon Israel and allow
them to create a new Israel that is divisive,
tyrannical and tribalistic. This is why they
fight us so bitterly at the Western Wall, and
why they stymied the agreement that would
have created an equitable prayer space at that
holiest of Jewish sites.

We will not stand idly by while the most
important project of contemporary Jewish
life, the State of Israel, is led down the road
of autocracy by extremists. Instead, we will
renew our dedication to the State of Israel
as a safe home for all her citizens and the
democratic, pluralistic homeland of all Jewish
people. We refuse to allow extremists to
subvert religious equality in Israel.

The Reform and Conservative Jewish
movements are growing in Israel, showing
that Israel is yearning for a Judaism that is
egalitarian, relevant, evolving and morally
rigorous. The progressive Zionism we embody is
not reliant on the politicians or parties in
power; rather, it is tied to the diverse people
of Israel and the bedrock values of “freedom,
justice and peace” upon which Israel was
built and are enshrined in its Declaration of
Independence. This is a critical time to invest
our energy and resources in growing the
pluralistic Jewish communities in Israel. The
JEWISH NEWS
Israel Religious Action Center, our Reform
movement’s social justice arm in Israel, is one
such institution that is lighting the way for that
just, secure and pluralistic Israel we envision
and hold in our hearts.

Over the coming months, our Reform
movement will bring thousands of North
American Jews — teens, families, and adults
— to experience the beauty and miracle of
modern Israel while visiting and strengthening
our allies throughout the land. The unity
and security of the Jewish people matter
immensely to us, and the well-being of the
Jewish State is also our responsibility. These
are two profound reasons why we will not stop
standing up and fighting for the Israel we love.

We will not let the darkness overtake the
light. The light shines brightly when we
celebrate the many authentic ways our people
live out their Jewish commitment. The light
shines brightly whenever we are partisans for
justice and compassion. As inaugural poet
Amanda Gorman said, “There is always light.

If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only
we’re brave enough to be it.”
Let this be said of us — Chanukah and
every day. JN
The views and opinions expressed in this article
are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70
Faces Media.

JANUARY 6, 2023
9