OPINION: How can the Jewish community help move refugees from ‘strangers’ to neighbours?
Rabbi David Mason calls for a more nuanced, and compassionate approach ahead of Refugee Shabbat 2025
I’ve been thinking about the word ‘stranger’ recently. The Torah, of course, makes the command to ‘welcome the stranger’ 36 times. So important in fact is this instruction that it is repeated more than any other commandment – we are varyingly told not to ‘oppress’ the stranger, nor to ‘wrong’ them; we must even ‘love them as yourself’. But as we approach Refugee Shabbat 2025, I am wondering how we should relate to the language of ‘stranger’ today.
What is it that we mean by this word? We understand it as referring to those displaced by war, persecution, poverty – people who have joined our society in search of safety and sanctuary. And so for me, ‘stranger’ is not a status we should accept for others to have. Instead we should be striving strive to have ‘neighbours’: people who are an integrated part of our communities, not isolated on its margins.
We must also reflect on how our own community can help achieve this. We may question why as British Jews, we should feel a duty, an obligation, to act? I can answer that simply. It is because of the Jewish values and history that drive the work of my organisation, HIAS+JCORE: Compassion, Responsibility, Solidarity and Partnership.
I would therefore also encourage all Jewish communities to register for this year’s Refugee Shabbat (28 February to 1 March). Sign up, stand with us, and send a strong message of support for refugees. If we can do this, we unite and ensure the 120 million displaced people worldwide know they are not alone.
This is a critical moment. Displacement is at a record high, all while many governments seek not to act in solidarity, but increasing hostility. We know that Jewish communities, individuals, and groups – both here in the UK, and around the world – have been doing wonderful work to welcome refugees to their new homes. Join us and become part of this movement for change.
At the same time, if we want to move from welcome to integration, we need to put our values into action through policy change. Here I also feel our Jewish communities can play a leading role. Of course, we have many priorities we wish for the new government to enact. But I feel that we have a special responsibility to ensure that refugee issues are on the forefront of our minds when we speak to power.
The truth is that we currently have an asylum system which fails to recognize the humanity in those it should support. Perhaps this is easier to do when we view those seeking refuge as mere ‘strangers’. Yet when we break this down, recognise the person, see their uniqueness and individuality in the group, we can understand that the current system is not how we should want our neighbours to be treated. Is this really the society we want to have – one where it is so easy to dismiss the needs of the ‘other’?
Earlier this year, the Government introduced a new bill, which it views as the necessary way to reform our asylum system. It seeks to ‘smash the gangs’ and prevent ‘small boat crossings’: on the face of it, aims many of us will see as admirable, and even humanitarian. But the view of my organisation – and many others within the refugee sector, and our community – is that it won’t provide real solutions.
Yes, we need an end to scenes of desperate people being forced onto crowded dinghies. But currently, what is the alternative? There is no safe way to reach this country. For people fleeing war in Sudan, for the majority of those escaping persecution in Afghanistan, we are simply not taking our responsibility. Locking up refugees forced into Channel crossings will not solve this.
We must always learn from the mistakes of the past. Many British Jews rightly spoke out against the cruelty of the last government’s approach: to us, the harm and pain caused by policy like the Rwanda plan was simply unconscionable.
So join with us, and call for a more nuanced, and compassionate approach. One where refugees have safe routes to reach the UK (and where they do not have to rely on people smugglers). And where they reach a country which welcomes them, empowers them, allows them to thrive – with our community at the forefront of this work. Now is the time to act. Together, we can truly ensure that refugees are our neighbours, not strangers.
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- Rabbi David Mason, executive director, HIAS+JCORE
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