The Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery - original since 1910! One of the things that liberal Jews and everyone else likes to have conniptions about is how Jewish immigrants were also discriminated against and later banned from coming just as they were being genocided in Europe.
So as Jews, we are supposed to understand and empathize with all immigrants.
Furthermore, because Jews have done well in America (proving discrimination and bans against Jewish immigrants to have been very wrong), many Jews feel this means that all immigrants should be given a chance.
Well, the one HUGE difference between Jews and everyone else is that fundamental American stuff, like the Constitution and many Western laws and cultural values, are based on Judaism. In other words, Jews are the source for American culture. This is why, for example, there is exists the term “Judeo-Christian values.” Notice how you’ve never heard terms like “Islamo-Christian values” or “Animist-Christian values” or “Hindu-Christian values.”
(FYI: "Judeo-Christian" is not an accurate term. Yeah, we all know what people mean when they say it, but just to be nitpicky: Any Jewish values found in Christianity are still just that: Jewish. And any Christian values are not.)
Anyway, there was no problem letting Jews in because Jews upheld—heck, invented—the very values America held dear. (Well, not "invented," per se, but transmitted directly from God...)
Jews also lacked the crime and alcoholism rate to which other groups—like the Irish and Italians—were prone.
(Although we love your accents, Irish people! And we love your food, Italian people!)
And for better or for worse, Jews wanted to assimilate.
(This is actually a bad trait in Jewish immigrants, but it tends to be a good trait for everyone else coming to America.)
In general, Jews wanted to be American and speak English and get educated and rich, move into nice neighborhoods, and get along with everyone.
(And even the minority of Jewish immigrants that did sequester themselves do not display the terrible socio-economic problems that other immigrant neighborhoods in America and Europe show. Yes, I know there are problems. But it is not the same as Mexican, African, or Muslim immigrant neighborhoods. It's just not.)
Do Papuans and Syrians and Mexicans want to wholly assimilate into America? Likely some really do. But as things look right now, a large percentage of them don’t.
(And if you don't believe me, then please read The Immigration Dilemma: Part of the Geula Process and Refusing the Wretched Refuse.)
Another big difference was that Jews helped—and still help—their fellow Jewish immigrants in America.
Even the very early Jewish immigration (late 1800s-early 1900s) from Europe received help.
From whom, you might ask?
Sephardim were the first Jews to settle America. They were a bit embarrassed by their impoverished and not-as-snazzy brethren arriving from Eastern Europe, so they were surreptitious about the aid they provided, but the early Jewish aid organizations were largely funded by Sephardim. (You just didn’t see them much in the actual flesh.)
Likewise, the massive Jewish immigration from Russia received enormous help from the present Jewish communities in the USA. Jewish communities generously helped with subsidizing housing, school placement and tuition to Jewish schools, food, furniture, and job placement.
For some reason, people (including many Jews themselves) hate to acknowledge this, but Jews as immigrants are and have always been in a class of their own.
And again, our value system provided America with its value system. We are the source.
Jews need to stop projecting their image onto immigrants from primitive and brutal cultures.
It’s simply not accurate or helpful.
So as Jews, we are supposed to understand and empathize with all immigrants.
Furthermore, because Jews have done well in America (proving discrimination and bans against Jewish immigrants to have been very wrong), many Jews feel this means that all immigrants should be given a chance.
Well, the one HUGE difference between Jews and everyone else is that fundamental American stuff, like the Constitution and many Western laws and cultural values, are based on Judaism. In other words, Jews are the source for American culture. This is why, for example, there is exists the term “Judeo-Christian values.” Notice how you’ve never heard terms like “Islamo-Christian values” or “Animist-Christian values” or “Hindu-Christian values.”
(FYI: "Judeo-Christian" is not an accurate term. Yeah, we all know what people mean when they say it, but just to be nitpicky: Any Jewish values found in Christianity are still just that: Jewish. And any Christian values are not.)
Anyway, there was no problem letting Jews in because Jews upheld—heck, invented—the very values America held dear. (Well, not "invented," per se, but transmitted directly from God...)
Jews also lacked the crime and alcoholism rate to which other groups—like the Irish and Italians—were prone.
(Although we love your accents, Irish people! And we love your food, Italian people!)
And for better or for worse, Jews wanted to assimilate.
(This is actually a bad trait in Jewish immigrants, but it tends to be a good trait for everyone else coming to America.)
In general, Jews wanted to be American and speak English and get educated and rich, move into nice neighborhoods, and get along with everyone.
(And even the minority of Jewish immigrants that did sequester themselves do not display the terrible socio-economic problems that other immigrant neighborhoods in America and Europe show. Yes, I know there are problems. But it is not the same as Mexican, African, or Muslim immigrant neighborhoods. It's just not.)
Do Papuans and Syrians and Mexicans want to wholly assimilate into America? Likely some really do. But as things look right now, a large percentage of them don’t.
(And if you don't believe me, then please read The Immigration Dilemma: Part of the Geula Process and Refusing the Wretched Refuse.)
Another big difference was that Jews helped—and still help—their fellow Jewish immigrants in America.
Even the very early Jewish immigration (late 1800s-early 1900s) from Europe received help.
From whom, you might ask?
Sephardim were the first Jews to settle America. They were a bit embarrassed by their impoverished and not-as-snazzy brethren arriving from Eastern Europe, so they were surreptitious about the aid they provided, but the early Jewish aid organizations were largely funded by Sephardim. (You just didn’t see them much in the actual flesh.)
Likewise, the massive Jewish immigration from Russia received enormous help from the present Jewish communities in the USA. Jewish communities generously helped with subsidizing housing, school placement and tuition to Jewish schools, food, furniture, and job placement.
For some reason, people (including many Jews themselves) hate to acknowledge this, but Jews as immigrants are and have always been in a class of their own.
And again, our value system provided America with its value system. We are the source.
Jews need to stop projecting their image onto immigrants from primitive and brutal cultures.
It’s simply not accurate or helpful.
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