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Stephen Miller,
Meet Your Immigrant Great-Grandfather
I
am fascinated by Stephen Miller.
He is the 30-year-old wunderkind
political adviser in the campaign of
Donald J. Trump whose job has been
to whip up the crowd prior to Trump
taking the stage.
Miller’s powerful
lines, the ones that
really froth the mob,
all revolve around
immigration. To stoke
the emotions, he
repeatedly references
the brutal murder of
Kate Steinle at the
Rob Eshman
hands
of an illegal
Jewish Journal
immigrant.
“How many
children are dead
because of our sanc-
tuary cities?” he asks. “Don’t ever, ever
let anyone tell you that you’re not a
good person because you want to
secure the border!”
And then, playing John the Baptist
to Jesus, Miller says, “I have some good
news for you, folks; I have some fabu-
lous news.” And he brings on, that’s
right, Donald the Savior.
According to a long profile of Miller
by Julia Ioffe in Politico, Miller is fast
becoming the forward face of the
Trump campaign. His former boss,
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, said he
can’t think of anyone as valuable to a
presidential campaign since Karl Rove.
When Trump brought Miller on board,
Ann Coulter, America’s blondest race-
baiter, tweeted, “I’m in heaven!”
But what stopped me short in Ioffe’s
report was this biographical tidbit:
Stephen Miller grew up in Santa
Monica, in a Jewish family.
Cue the record scratch. What? I
doubted the Family Miller came over
on the Mayflower, and I was positive
they weren’t here to greet the boat.
Could it be this young anti-immigrant
leader is the descendent of immi-
grants? With the help of attorney and
genealogy whiz E. Randol Schoenberg,
I had my answer. On his mother’s side,
Miller is a Glosser — and you could
write a book on the Glossers. In fact,
someone did.
For $19.99, I bought the Kindle edi-
tion of Long Live Glosser’s by Robert
Jeschonek, a history of Pennsylvania’s
first family of retail.
“Imagine living in a place where
armed Cossacks ride through the
streets, looking to cripple or kill you,”
Chapter 3 begins.
And so it was Wolf Lieb Glotzer
and his wife, Bessie, sought to
as the Eastern European
flee “dreary, scary” Antopol, in
Jews docked in New York.
Belarus. On Jan. 7, 1903, Wolf
“The horde of $9.60 steer-
arrived in New York aboard the
age slime is being siphoned
German ship S.S. Motke with $8
upon us from Continental
in his pocket. He was eventually
mud tanks.”
joined by his son, Natan, a tailor,
Such sentiments led to
and his brother Moses, who had
the Immigration Quota Act
arrived earlier, having escaped
of 1924 — which effectively
Stephen Miller
conscription in the czar’s army.
shut the door to Jewish
On a visit to Uncle Moses, Natan
immigration on the eve of
stopped in Johnstown, Pa., and fell in
the Holocaust.
love with the place. He found work as a
Miller’s stump speech taps into
tailor and soon bought the shop.
that same, ever-present strain in the
You know the rest. Glosser’s
American body politic. But when an
expanded. More family, including
American Jew turns on immigrants,
brother Sam, joined in, and Glosser
there is a whiff of head-scratching
Bros. eventually grew into a chain of
hypocrisy if not something more clini-
dozens of stores, becoming a beloved
cal. It is taking the side of people who,
part of the community before eventu-
in a historical blink of the eye, would
ally closing. And so it was: Sam Glosser have met your own great-grandparents
begat Isadore, whose grandson is, yes,
at the docks with stones and spitballs.
Stephen Miller.
It is taking a fixable problem like
By becoming Trump’s anti-immi-
immigration reform and making it
grant avatar, Miller demonstrates that
intractable by stoking anti-immigrant
in America, truly anything is possible:
fear and hate, by calling for a ban on
The great-grandson of a desperate
an entire religion, by demeaning the
refugee can grow up to shill for the
sons and daughters of immigrants by
demagogue bent on keeping desperate race — all things Miller and his boss
refugees like his great-grandfather out. are doing. The goal of that behavior
But it’s different now, you say.
isn’t to fix a broken system, but to
Miller’s forebears came here legally,
score political points off it.
and Trump is not about stopping legal
So Miller will scream the name of
immigration.
Kate Steinle’s murderer but never men-
Well, false. Last week at a rally in
tion, say, Antonio Diaz Chacon — an
Portland, Maine, Trump attacked
illegal immigrant who, in 2011, chased
legal immigration from countries that
down and tackled a child molester
are “prone to terrorism,” including
who had just abducted a 6-year-old
Somalia, Morocco. Uzbekistan, the
girl.
Philippines, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and
Most immigrants, illegal or not,
Afghanistan.
come to America to live secure, pros-
“We’re letting people come in
perous lives. Most are no different than
from terrorist nations that shouldn’t
Natan and Sam Glosser.
be allowed because you can’t vet
Thank God the anti-immigrant
them,” Trump said, according to the
demagogues of 1900 didn’t get their
Washington Post. He warned the crowd way. The Glosser brothers would have
of “outsiders pouring into our country.” been left to molder in some Belorusian
(How a Trump administration will
shtetl, where fate would have given
handle immigration from Israel, where them the choice of Hitler or Stalin. And
far more terrorist acts are committed
Stephen Miller would never have been
than in Morocco, is anyone’s guess.)
born.
And for Miller to say his family came
But he was. He had the blessing
to America “legally” is simply a ruse.
of being born the great-grandson of
There was no illegal immigration at
Jewish immigrants, and not the child
the turn of the century because all
of today’s refugees, who only want the
non-Asian immigration was essentially same chance Sam Glosser once had
legal until the 1920s.
to make themselves, and America,
Then, as now, angry voices fought
great.•
to keep these immigrants out. They
organized the Immigration Restriction ROB ESHMAN is publisher and editor-in-chief of
TRIBE Media Corp./Jewish Journal.
League, focused on shutting the ports
Email him at robe@jewishjournal.com.
to swarthy Italians and Jews.
You can follow him on Instagram and
“The floodgates are open,” wrote
Twitter @foodaism and @RobEshman.
one anti-immigrant newspaper editor
Barbara Kratchman and Eric Adelman,
executive director of Kadima.
Kadima To
Honor Barbara
Kratchman
Kadima, a Southfield-based mental
health organization serving individ-
uals with mental health challenges,
will recognize Barbara Kratchman
as Community Volunteer of the
Year at its annual meeting and rec-
ognition event Sept. 6.
Barbara and her husband,
Michael Kratchman (a Kadima past
president), have been Kadima sup-
porters for many years. But it was
the connection to the couple’s love
for the arts and Barbara’s experi-
ence with the professional and
nonprofit arts community that
helped to spearhead a new Kadima
program.
Barbara has helped staff to
develop the Kadima Creative
Expressions Program, which
will greatly expand arts enrich-
ment, education and therapy for
agency clients. During this process,
Barbara also facilitated the devel-
opment of the Creative Expressions
Council, a group of individuals
and organizations partnering with
Kadima to help this program flour-
ish.
“Barbara is so deserving of the
Volunteer of the Year Award,” says
Michelle Malamis, Kadima’s devel-
opment director. “We are excited to
recognize her energy, enthusiasm
and tremendous volunteer efforts
over the past year.”
The event will take place at 5:30
p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 6, at the
Great Lakes Culinary Center in
Southfield. There will be a cocktail
reception, hors d’oeuvres, instal-
lation of new board officers and a
program that will include awards
and agency vision. Tickets are
complimentary. To register, visit
kadimacenter.org/annualmeeting,
email annep@kadimacenter.org or
call Anne Perry at (248) 663-4330. •
jn
August 17 • 2017
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