Liberal Jews decry Trump’s new immigration order

Jewish groups condemn an executive order issued by President Trump banning new visas for citizens from six Muslim-majority countries.

The Reform movement slams the order, calling it “discriminatory and unjust.”

“The Jewish community — like all Americans whose ancestors arrived as refugees and immigrants — was given opportunities to access education, join the workforce, and contribute to their communities and their country. Let us not now allow fear to overwhelm our nation’s capacity for compassion,” Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religion Action Center, says on behalf of the movement in a statement.

HIAS, a refugee resettlement agency formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, urges Jews to fight back against the order.

“We will resist all attempts to vilify refugees,” the group writes on Twitter. “The US Jewish community owes its very existence to a tradition of welcoming refugees.”

The social justice group Bend the Arc Jewish Action says it will “fight for our Muslim brothers and sisters.”

“This is not about national security — he is targeting Muslims, immigrants and refugees purely out of spite and fear, but national security experts agree that his action today will not keep us safer,” the group’s CEO, Stosh Cotler, says in a statement.

T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights also condemns the measure.

The executive order “continues to effectively close our borders to Muslims, and flagrantly violates America’s longstanding, values-driven commitment to serving as a safe haven for refugees,” says a statement by the rabbinic group. “Masked as an effort to ensure national security, this new executive order is more of the same Islamophobia that targets Muslims by reinstating the discredited vetting procedures, established after September 11, 2001, aimed at men from Muslim-majority countries.”

— JTA