{"id":11552,"date":"2015-03-27T00:04:37","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T07:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=11552"},"modified":"2015-03-26T17:09:44","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T00:09:44","slug":"we-all-were-once-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/03\/27\/we-all-were-once-strangers\/","title":{"rendered":"We all were once strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"

A boat of new immigrants arrives in pre-state Israel on Oct. 2, 1947. (photo from the Palmach Archive via PikiWiki Israel)<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Passover seder begins by welcoming anyone who is hungry, an idea that comes straight from the Book of Exodus (23:9), which states, \u201cYou shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the Torah, Leviticus 19:33 says, \u201cWhen a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.\u201d Leviticus 19:34 repeats this refrain, \u201cThe stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the generations, the Jewish people have been \u201caliens\u201d more than once. Well-known examples of Jews leaving their perceived homeland include the Jewish exile to Babylonia after the destruction for the first Temple, those who were fortunate enough to escape Nazi persecution for Israel or the United States, expelled Middle Eastern Jews who were moved to Israel after its founding, or residents of the former Soviet Union who left a life of religious oppression.<\/p>\n

The immigrant experience is different for everyone, said Aaron Gershowitz, senior director for U.S. programs at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). He told this\u00a0reporter that the challenges of an individual\u2019s journey often depend on the environment they are leaving and the community to which they are relocating.<\/p>\n

Take Inge \u201cIrene\u201d Brenner. She escaped from Nazi Germany on Dec. 28, 1938, for Havana, Cuba. From there, she traveled to the United States, arriving to join her husband in April 1939 at age 19. She immediately took up work at a small factory where she steamed hat plumes. Her employer provided her with the required documentation to book passage for her mother, father and sister to the United States. Due to a lack of funds, the family all lived together in a tiny apartment in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I left Berlin, I was 19 and completely single-minded, [telling myself] \u2018I must get out and save myself and my parents,\u2019\u201d Brenner said. \u201cWe just couldn\u2019t have existed anymore. That is what happened to the rest of my family that didn\u2019t get out \u2013 all of them were murdered in the gas chambers. There was nothing else I could do but make it. You just had to make it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gershowitz said that \u201cthe economics of surviving\u201d often mark the first several years (or longer) of the immigrant experience. It is only after that period that immigrants become more like others \u2013 more focused on family life, a career and a future for their children.<\/p>\n

Over time, this was the case for Brenner. Once she and her husband could afford to leave the rest of the family and live on their own, they had two daughters who they raised to be American Jews, as opposed to Jewish Americans. Brenner said she wanted to leave her horrible past behind for a new life, which she feels she received \u201cby the grace of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was always proud to be Jewish, but it was always extremely hard for her to talk about how she got here,\u201d said Benjamin Kopelman, Brenner\u2019s grandson.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Lev Golinkin (photo by Diana P. Lang)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lev Golinkin, author of a memoir on the immigrant experience titled A Backpack, a Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka<\/em>, noted the irony that Soviet Jews came to the United States in search of religious freedom, yet many of them choose not to practise Jewish traditions, his family included.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we could, we got away from the synagogue and Jewish organizations and melded into the secular American world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Golinkin, who arrived in the United States from eastern Ukraine in 1989 at the age of 9, surmised that people turned away from religious observance because it was precisely the Jewish faith that made them targets for persecution in the former Soviet Union. Before escaping, Golinkin was being homeschooled because he had been regularly teased and beaten for his Judaism. Religion, therefore, was nothing to celebrate for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted nothing to do with that. I saw being a Jew as a stigma, a disability,\u201d said Golinkin.<\/p>\n

But as he grew up, Golinkin\u2019s opinion changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is interesting that the Israelites stayed in the desert and didn\u2019t start over until that generation had passed away. They needed a clean slate, they needed people whose memories are formed in the new land with the new traditions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more at jns.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maayan Jaffe<\/em><\/strong> is an Overland Park-based freelance writer. Reach her at jaffemaayan@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter, @MaayanJaffe.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A boat of new immigrants arrives in pre-state Israel on Oct. 2, 1947. (photo from the Palmach Archive via PikiWiki Israel) The Passover seder begins by welcoming anyone who is hungry, an idea that comes straight from the Book of Exodus (23:9), which states, \u201cYou shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[781],"tags":[3453,3452,3454,3455,400,401],"class_list":["post-11552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holidays","tag-aaron-gershowitz","tag-immigrant","tag-irene-brenner","tag-lev-golinkin","tag-passover","tag-seder"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}