jews in the d

Welcoming Strangers

Local rabbi leads pilgrimage to border to protest U.S. immigration policies.

Rabbi Josh Whinston of Temple Beth
Emeth in Ann Arbor speaks to a
multi-faith group protesting outside
the Tornillo, Texas, detention center.

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

R

abbi Josh Whinston of Temple
Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor led a
group of 20 people, including 11
of his congregants as well as some from
Ann Arbor’s Beth Israel Congregation to
El Paso, Texas, in mid-November to join
an interfaith group protesting U.S. immi-
gration policies and to provide hands-on
help to immigrants caught in the system.
Several incidences prompted
Whinston to take action. This summer,
he helped drive a Guatemalan woman,
Yeni Gonzalez, from Ann Arbor to
Pittsburgh in an attempt to reunite with
her children, who were separated from
her when she crossed the border. He
called the experience “the most import-
ant thing I have done in a long time.”
About a month ago, a congregant
asked Whinston what they could do
about U.S. government treatment of
immigrants besides writing a check.
And, finally, Whinston viewed the
late-October murder of 11 Jews in a
Pittsburgh synagogue as not just an act
of hatred of Jewish people, but also an
attack on Jewish values. The alleged kill-
er said he wanted to kill all Jews because
Jews support immigrants, specifically

PHOTOS BY RACHEL GOLDBERG

HIAS, an organization formed to sup-
port immigrants.
“We take our own values seriously,”
he said. “We take care of the stranger. It
is our Torah and our value, especially
given our history. I am not politicizing
this massacre. Those were the killer’s
words. We have to live up to our values.”
Whinston got in touch with a col-
league, Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp in
Cincinnati, who had contacts with Faith
in Action, a national community orga-
nizing group. They put together the “Let
Our Families Go” campaign that includ-
ed stopping in other states along the way
to add others to their caravan.
On Nov. 15, the group went through a
series of activities at sites encountered by
asylum seekers at the border. For exam-
ple, they briefly crossed the bridge to
Juarez, Mexico. As they
returned to the U.S.,
Wendy Lawrence, a
Temple Beth Emeth
member, marveled at how
easily she could cross,
compared to others on the
Wendy
same bridge.
Lawrence
“There was a check-

point before the border, apparently just
to scare people from trying to get to the
U.S.,” she said. “We, a group of white
adults, were waved through. We didn’t
have to get our passports out. The other
line, for non-citizens, heard ‘We’re full.’
“People who wish to gain recognition
as refugees have the legal right to seek
asylum in the United States, If, however,
they cannot get to the border, they have
no way to request recognition. The legal
crossing point accepts only a small num-
ber of asylum seekers. The rest wait, and
wait, on the Mexican side of the border.
If they cross elsewhere, the U.S. govern-
ment considers them ‘illegal entrants,’
prejudicing their claim for asylum.”
Asylum seekers who do enter the U.S.
automatically get detained for an inter-
view by law, so pilgrimage participants
went to a detention facility at Tornillo, in
the Texas desert about 45 minutes out-
side El Paso. The facility holds more than
1,000 children separated from their fami-
lies and has capacity for 4,000, according
to U.S. Health and Human Services.
Temple Beth Emeth member Rachel
Goldberg describes the scene outside the
detention center.

“There we formed part
of an interfaith group
observing, witnessing,”
she said. “The group
included priests, Muslim
women in hijabs and a
group of high school stu-
Rachel
dents (young women
Goldberg
from a local Catholic
school) and also folks wearing yarmulkes
and tallit (rabbis and congregants) and
various Christian groups. This was a
group of diverse people compelled by
their faith to upend their lives to
witness.”
Whinston recounts the group’s
scheduled activity there. “For a time,
we sang together and heard speeches.
Then we approached the entrance to the
facility,” he said. “Predictably, agents of
Homeland Security denied us entry. We
were ready for that result; we did not
push it. We were not expecting to see the
inside of the facility.”
Yet the visit included something unex-
pected.
“In the hour we were there, a few
buses drove in, taking more children into
the facility,” said Goldberg, a teacher at

continued on page 14

12

November 29 • 2018

jn

