Dear Friends,
Did you know that the Statue of Liberty has a Jewish story? Our Confirmation Class discovered the statue’s foundations — both literal and figurative — on our recent trip to New York City.
The story begins with a great Jewish American who should be a household name: Emma Lazarus. Born to a prominent Sephardic family in the 1840s, she was already a published author by age 14. By the 1880s, hundreds of thousands of Jews were fleeing violent Russian pogroms. Bearing witness to the plight of her people, Lazarus dedicated much of her life to aiding migrants in distress. She volunteered at New York’s Ward’s Island, which at that time served as a first point of arrival for new immigrants, as well as a hospital for the ill and infirm. She was an early volunteer in the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, today known as HIAS.
Lazarus concretized what became her life’s vocation into a powerful poem. Calling it The New Colossus, she drew a contrast between the imposing, martial Colossus of Rhodes and the welcoming, maternal Lady Liberty. She penned the poem as part of an effort to raise funds for the statue’s completion. Rediscovered some years later, the poem became so popular that it was engraved on a plaque in the statue’s base, where it remains today. You know the famous refrain:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Our confirmation class recited these words in New York Harbor as we traced the immigrant stories that unite us. We visited two historic synagogues, as well as the tenement museum, where families of 10 or more routinely shared 350 square feet. So many of us have ancestors who braved these conditions in search of a better life. Do you know your family’s immigration story?
As time goes on, each generation feels increasingly distant from our forebears. On one hand, this is a success: our teenagers feel the comforts of modern life as full Americans. On the other hand, oppression has shaped Jewish identity in profound ways. And even if we are determined to forget this dimension of our history, it seems the world will always stand ready to remind us. When we understand where we come from, we better understand ourselves.
The Jewish story is one of outsidership. Abraham, the very first Hebrew, famously described himself as a “stranger in a strange land.” That very word, Hebrew (“ivri”), refers to crossing between places - an identity that passes from here to there, but doesn’t always fit solely in either place.
At Pesach, we sit down with family to tell our freedom story. The Haggadah explains that its own narrative arc proceeds from g’nut l’shevach - degradation to praise. Avadim Hayinu, we cry! We were slaves, and now we are free.
We are further instructed to see ourselves, individually, as if we all came out of Egypt. The collective memory, in other words, becomes our personal responsibility.
Our confirmation students have been examining this history all year, in conversation with their family stories. I hope that they felt the weight of that history on our visit to New York. It is a history that imbues us with privilege, as well as profound responsibility. This year marks 250 years of the American experiment. What a wonderful opportunity for all of us to discover (or rediscover) our own family stories.
Each year Passover bids us remember:
We were slaves, so we must fight for the oppressed.
We know the pain of the outsider. And so, we are called, like Emma Lazarus, to aid the outsiders among us.
This year we are here, next year in the land of Israel.
This year, many are in chains. Next year, may all be free.
Chag Kasher V’Sameach (Happy Passover!),
Rabbi Moss