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Guest Column

EDITORIAL BOARD:
Publisher: Arthur M. Horwitz
Chief Operating Officer: F. Kevin Browett
Contributing Editor: Robert Sklar

Editorial

Immigrant Welcome Mat:
The Jewish Imperative

H

When Social Media Contact
Dissolves Into Rough Times

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oyal readers of the Jewish News likely have a
methodology in which they read it. I know,
for example, growing up my mom always
started with the back cover. Not because that was
how Jewish texts were read or because she was look-
ing for gift ideas for her favorite daughter from the
jewelry ad each week. She began with the obituaries
— to ensure she didn't miss
paying respect to a family we
might know in mourning.
Years ago, I used to begin
flipping immediately to the
section where I could see who
was to be a bar or bat mitzvah
... and of course, right onto
the wedding section to see
who I knew was celebrating
this next cycle of life.
At my age now, I love the
pictures of babies as so many
of the parents are people I know well, and I can
share their excitement.
The interest in other people has never been new.
It's only human nature to be intrigued with the hap-
penings of people we know. We even care when we
don't know them —which explains the dozens of
weekly celebrity tabloids that tempt most of us to
purchase and read.
But what about all the news that people are not
excited to share with the community?

Online Power Play
With social media today, "Jewish Geography" has
never been an easier game to play. In "the old days:'
we used to meet someone who we would learn was
Jewish and quickly play the name game to see who
they knew that we know. It's sort of a new relation-
ship right of passage.
Nowadays, when a new person comes into our life,
we can immediately look them up on Facebook and
click to see who our "mutual friends" might be. Once
we connect in this online manner, we are granted
even more access to one another's lives.
Recently, I went through my own life change. I had
to make a decision to let this change into the world
of Facebook. After my two-year relationship ended, I
was faced with the dreaded task of breaking up, vir-
tually thereby announcing it to nearly 1,400 people I

At the core of all of this

communication needs to be

the fundamentals through

which we as Jews strive to

lead our lives.

connect directly with online. Is it anyone's business?
No. But, do I want my own personal page to say I am
with someone that I am actually no longer with?
Even worse was the newsfeed line I was certain
would pop up on everyone else's page:
"Rachel Wright is no longer in a relationship" —
complete with a heart that is broken in two.

The Reality
I took a deep breath and just did it. I quickly tried to
delete any update to prevent this "news" from becom-
ing everyone else's. But of course, once something is
on the Internet, it's there. What I couldn't believe was
how some people handled this sensitive information.
Within minutes, I had comments on my wall:
• "Wow, so sorry to hear that."
• "Hope you are OK!"
• "I'm here if you need someone."
Such heartfelt statements shared not only with
me, but everyone else who can see the forum in
which they were left.
Whatever happened to the phone? Have we gotten
to a place where we shorten the human interaction
with people when we don't know how else to be sup-
portive? What's become even worse, I fear, is how
people take the knowledge they learn online and
turn it into dinner conversation.
We've all done it: sat in a restaurant, told a friend
a story, only to look around in a 360-degree fashion
mid-tale, to lean even closer to our listener and said
someone else's name in a breathless whisper — so
quiet they may have missed it.
Why do we do this? Because heaven forbid, the
diners sitting in the neighboring booth are actually
the in-laws of said whispered name and potentially
overheard what has been shared. We whisper when

Social Media on page 39

38

July 28 2011

achnasat Orchim, the welcoming of guests, has
been at the core of our peoplehood since the
time of Abraham. With our patriarch's tent open
on all sides to the stranger, we are symbolically reminded
to extend our hospitality and humanity to others.
As Jews, we have felt the pain of exclusion through the
centuries ... the ghettos, the quotas, the restrictive cov-
enants, the forced conversions and in its most vile and
extreme form, the Nazi-mandated yellow Stars of David.
When we sought welcome mats, especially when our lives
and the lives of our children depended on them, we were
usually met with slammed doors.
It's because of our core value as a welcoming commu-
nity and our post-Second Temple history as "wandering
Jews" without a place to call home (until the birth of
America and the re-establishment of a Jewish home-
land in Israel) that we must help lead efforts to make
sure Michigan extends a welcome mat to immigrants for
humanitarian reasons and as an important part of our
state's economic revitalization.
Last week's all-day conference, "Immigration and
Michigan's Future," organized by New Michigan Media
(which includes the Jewish News as a founding member)
and Global Detroit at Wayne State University in Detroit,
didn't dwell on the gridlock in Washington related to fed-
eral immigration reform. Rather, it focused on what we in
Michigan can, and should, do to attract and retain immi-
grants in ways that strengthen our economy, our social
fabric and our cities, especially Detroit.
As New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg told attendees via live tele-
conference, immigrants create jobs and
often accept jobs that no one else will
do. While America is "committing nation-
al economic suicide" by trying to close
its borders to immigrants, he encour-
aged Detroit and Michigan to recruit
immigrants who are already in New York
Bloomberg
and other gateway cities. And Michigan
Gov. Rick Snyder, who delivered the
conference's keynote address, stated
emphatically that "immigrants are job
creators; make no mistake about it, they
are job creators."
With Michigan in a one-state economic
• n,,
recession for the past decade, and the
only state to record a population decline
Snyder
between the 2000 and 2010 U.S. cen-
suses, we will be committing "state eco-
nomic suicide" unless we extend a welcome mat to immi-
grants that is embracing, proactive and includes fair and
equitable state laws, unlike Arizona. But for the welcome
mat to achieve optimal results, its champions must allay
the concerns of Detroit residents who believe they will
be displaced by growing immigrant communities that will
not reinvest their profits in the city.
The resulting upswing in Michigan's economy will pay
an added dividend for our Jewish community: an oppor-
tunity for us to welcome back some of our own children
and grandchildren into our tent. n

See related article on page 9