Written in response to Eric Garcetti’s Jewel. Read it HERE.
The story of the Jewish people is one of going and of coming, of leaving and arriving. We have fled persecution, as Mayor Garcetti’s family did – and we have sought better lives. The challenge remains to continuously hold up to the light the backbone of our tradition – to remember that the strangers in our midst are no different than we – we who are frequently strangers, travelers, seekers of freedom. All of us, Jew and non-Jew alike in this country, can trace our beginnings to another land, to another time. How long do we see ourselves as strangers, I wonder? How many generations pass of residence in one place before we no longer consider ourselves strangers? Is the story of our ancestors, like Mayor Garcetti’s, a more distant memory, making the shared experience of being a stranger, and of welcoming the stranger, that much more difficult? Most of our countries’ diverse cultures trace their roots to shores other than our own. And yet in our comfort with “home” we often are unable to access what that trust and hope filled journey was for our people generations past.
We can hold close the idea of newness and apprehension about a new place – without clinging to fear or a persecution mentality – regardless of how recent in our memory that journey was. In doing so we, like the Mayor of Los Angeles, are made more aware of the stranger – of the visitor who is lost, or unaware of the customs and “rules”, who is trying to do what our ancestors – everyone’s ancestors – did before us. Find a new home, a new life, and a new community of warmth and love.
3 Responses
I think Cantor Boxt makes a great point about being “unable to access what that trust and hope filled journey was for our people generations past” and that this — and maybe our own growing sense of belonging in this country — hinders our ability to accept other strangers. But in helping ourselves become more cognizant of how we see and treat the stranger, variously defined, I want to note that the observation that “All of us, Jew and non-Jew alike in this country, can trace our beginnings to another land” commits an inadvertent blindness: Native Americans came from this land and are still here, however marginalized and made a stranger in their own land. We must do what we can to welcome them as well, which includes reminding ourselves to see them.
It is so inspiring that we have Rabbis and community leaders such as the Mayor of Los Angeles with integrity an ethics as followed by Jews, this gives me hope and certainties that the city of LA is the center of spirituality. Thank you.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you describe the hurdles we have in seeing ourselves as “strangers”. We are so comfortable as Americans that it is only infrequently that we experience the “otherness” at the core of this discussion. Perhaps that is why our tradition reminds us time and again, through so many prayers, blessings and assorted texts, of our experience in Mitzrayim. With the reminders ever before us that we were strangers in a strange land, we are exhorted to pay attention to those who are the strangers in our midst. But it is so hard to live constantly with one foot in Mitzrayim, as it were, and one foot in the here and now…