Haitian Refugees
In 1939, when a boat full of Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Germany reached our shores, no place could be found on this vast continent to offer them a safe haven. They were mercilessly returned into the hands of the Nazis, to face their tragic fate in concentration camps and crematories.
And now the Haitians?
Perhaps the time has come to make a slight change to the magnificent sonnet by the Jewish poetess Emma Lazarus, inscribed on our Statue of Liberty?
Only one single word would have to be added, and the message would read:
DON’T “give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
RABBI MARVIN BORNSTEIN
Los Angeles
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