10 | SEPTEMBER 12 • 2019 

Views

A Soviet Jew Refl
 ects
on Immigration 
Deportations

essay

A

s an immigrant to the 
U.S. myself, the recent 
rise in deportation of 
immigrants, whatever their 
legal status, is personal for 
me. My family came here in 
1990, when 
I was only 
9 years old. 
However, the 
U.S. did not 
welcome us in 
easily, naturally, 
just out of the 
goodness of its 
heart, no matter what is writ-
ten on the Statue of Liberty.
The immigration doors 
opened because of decades 
of political struggle by 
Refuseniks in the Soviet 
Union and the hard work of 
organizing here in the U.S., 
first by college students and 
eventually by the full Jewish 
community. Thousands of 
people called their represen-
tatives, and 250,000 took 
to the streets in 1987 in 
Washington, to make my 
family’
s move here possible. 
Surely, many of you read-
ing the Jewish News contrib-
uted to that decades-long 
effort in one way or another. 
You made it legal. Thank 
you for that. You created 
incredible infrastructure in 
the U.S. to support us once 
we arrived. I can’
t thank you 
enough for that! 
But sadly, the legality, or 
lack thereof, does not change 
the desperate circumstances 
that often lead people to 
immigrate or seek asylum.
I’
m not a politician, so I 
will not pretend to have an 
answer for how we integrate 
the needs of security and 

budget on one hand, and 
the ethical and international 
imperative to help the needy 
and treat every person once 
they’
ve entered our country 
with basic dignity on the 
other. 
However, as a rabbi, I 
know something about dif-
ficult decisions, constructive 
conflict or lack thereof. I 
know something about the 
dehumanizing way in which 
we talk to each other and 
about each other in the U.S. 
right now. I also know that 
some choices are clear-cut 
wrongs.
The deportation of Jimmy 
Aldaoud, a 41-year old 
Chaldean man born in a ref-
ugee camp in Athens on the 
way from Iraq to the U.S., 
was a clear wrong. While the 
rest of his family became U.S. 
citizens, Jimmy’
s schizophre-
nia made it too difficult for 
him to take the test. So, we 
deported him, a man who 
had never actually stepped 
foot in Iraq, didn’
t speak the 
language, struggling with 
schizophrenia and diabetes. 
He died on Aug. 6. This 
story, in all its insanity, also 
hits close to home because 
my sister-in-law is Chaldean, 
so while I don’
t know 
Jimmy’
s family, I grieve with 
them as if they’
re part of my 
own.
The ridiculousness of our 
immigration system, which 
doesn’
t provide sufficient 
exceptions for people with 
mental health challenges, is 
also beyond words. I had an 
aunt with Down’
s syndrome 
who, at her citizenship 
interview, was asked, “Would 

Rabbi Moshe 
Givental

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