Cherem

So far as I can tell, my dad's dad, Harry Levine, was born in London, England on August 4, 1889 and came here in 1901, before the US Congress decided that he was a member of an undesirable race. That race, listed on a number of official documents, was "Hebrew."
My mom's mom, variously know on official documents as Molka, Molly, Margaret, and Marjorie, was born here. Her mom, Betsy Stenzler, came here from what is now Ukraine, but was listed in official documents in 1907. She is also listed as a member of that undesirable race, Hebrew.
None of my grandparents or great-grandparents had to undergo "extreme vetting." None of them had to get permission to come here before they arrived. All they had to do was show up, look reasonably healthy, and give some sort of indication that they would not immediately become public charges.
When white people brag that their families came "the right way" that is generally what they are talking about, showing up.
I find evidence that Harry, my paternal grandfather became a citizen in 1918. I find no evidence that my paternal grandmother, Cecilia became a citizen. That did not stop my father or his brothers from serving in the US Army and Navy.
I find no evidence that my great grandparents, Betsy or Sam, ever became citizens. That didn't stop their son, my grandmother Margie's brother Arthur, or their grandson, Margie's son Roger, from serving in the US Army.
Coming from England in 1901 I would have to guess that my grandfather Harry was not fleeing a horror that he had to prove in court at the age of twelve, nor that he was separated from his family and put in a cage. When I knew him he had a little shoe store on Burnside Avenue in the Bronx at a location which is now a Payless.
Coming from Galicia in 1907 it is possible that my great grandparents were frightened by the pogroms in Russia, just across the river. They did not have to submit to a hearing to demonstrate that this was a justifiable fear, nor that they fell into a recognized class, approved for asylum.
After 1924 the Congress decided that "Hebrews" were an undesirable "race." I suppose one proof is that all these people I mentioned remained Jewish. I, their grandson and great grandson have remained Jewish. Betsy and Sam continue to be listed in census reports as Yiddish speakers, even thirty plus years after their arrival. Even Harry, born in England, is listed in some census reports as Yiddish speaking, although my father remembers him refusing to speak to his customers in Yiddish, yelling "Speak English!" at them.
After the Nazis took over central Europe, huge numbers of Jewish people wanted to flee. But by then the United States had implemented strict quotas on this undesirable race and was unprepared to waive them. Their were no gas chambers yet in 1938. Lindsey Graham and Jeff Sessions and their ilk could have argued that they had no justifiable fear. Hell, they could have looked at the possibility of coming conflict with Germany and argued that all those desperate Jews were "bad hombres" and possible enemy combatants. Six million of them died.
I am unsurprised by Graham and Sessions. I don't expect any better. But now I hear some Jewish Americans feign outrage at comparisons between the US Coast Guard forcing the MS St. Louis to return to Europe in 1939 and Customs and Border Protection gassing asylum seekers at the San Ysidro border crossing.
You don't see the connection? You pretend it is disrespectful to the dead?
It is you who disrespect our dead. You disrespect them by allying yourself with the Cordell Hulls of today. You disrespect them by allying yourself with the Hamans of today. Your disrespect them by allying yourself with the Labans of today.
You risk cherem. You risk cherem. You risk cherem.