About 80 people assembled outside the Manhattan offices of Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer on Tuesday night for a vigil in support of refugees. Over 20 synagogues in Manhattan were represented at the vigil, which was organized by a coalition of New York congregations in conjunction with HIAS. The vigil, one of 22 across the country, marked the 78th anniversary of the St. Louis being turned away from the United States. A second NYC vigil was held in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall.
The St. Louis carried 937 Jewish refugees who fled Europe expecting refuge in Cuba. The ship’s passengers held documents issued by the Cuban government, which were revoked a week before the ship set sail. The owners of the ship knew that the documents were no longer valid but the passengers were not informed until they reached Cuba and were not allowed to disembark. The refugees were eventually released in England, Holland, and Germany, but 254 of them were later killed in the Holocaust.
It doesn't occur to these virtue-signalers that there are scores of Muslim countries in the world which could offer these refugees haven whereas the Jews on the St. Louis had literally nowhere to go. Also--the Syrian refugees they're so keen to embrace have been taught to hate Israel in particular and Jewry in general, including those Jews whose hearts bleed for them (and including the Jews aboard the St. Louis).Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, noted the significance of the St. Louis incident in bringing about modern conventions to protect refugees that are now being attacked. Modern protections for refugees “came out of the lessons and the shame of the St. Louis,” he said. “At that time there were no protections for refugees, and today there is, but that law is under threat...
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