Statement from Agudath Israel on President Trump's executive immigration order

Statement of Agudath Israel On President Trump's Executive Immigration Order

The immense contributions of immigrants to American life need no elaboration, nor does the importance of immigration to our great nation.  The world refugee crisis, moreover, must compel our deep concern for those fleeing persecution, as did so many of our own forebears.

 

President Trump's recent executive order seeks to protect the nation's citizens from terrorism, an unarguably honorable quest.

 

The strict vetting process that has long been in place has certainly helped keep terrorists and their recruiters from entering our country.  The executive order is aimed at temporarily strengthening that line of defense.  As such, it is laudable.  But only if its focus is on places, on countries that are hotbeds of violent radicalism, not on religious populations. 

 

And only if tempered by true concern for innocent refugees, who do not deserve to be caught up in nets intended to catch their oppressors.

 

We urge the administration to continue to evaluate the geopolitical situation and exercise great deliberation as it forges a permanent immigration policy, so that what results will well balance security concerns with human and religious rights.

Shabbos meal at Jared and Ivanka Kushner residence

Photo: Daily Mail 

Collive- Ivanka and Jared Kushner hosted a Shabbat Dinner for Cabinet members at their home; also seen were Washington DC Shluchim Levi and Nechama Shemtov.
First Daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner hosted members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet at their home Friday night for a “Shabbat dinner”, the Daily Mail reports.

In Jewish tradition, Shabbat is a weekly day of rest that begins Friday at sunset and ends Saturday after sunset.

Rubashkin still in Prison, hope for a miracle

A7-Previous outgoing presidents have pardoned a number of people during their last days in office. President Obama stoked controversy in his last week in office by commuting the sentence of Oscar López Rivera, an unrepentant terrorist who was not pardoned by former President Bill Clinton because he had refused to renounce violence, and by commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the US soldier who gave tens of thousands of documents to Wikileaks, including classified information.

However, President Obama has still failed to respond to Rubashkin's request for clemency.

In the last hours of the President's term in office, the family is extremely hopeful and praying hard for miraculous news. They urge anyone with a relationship with the President to contact him about this important case.

I Abstain from the Outrage

I Abstain from the Outrage- by rabbi Avi Shafran
Hamodia

The U.S. abstention to the recent U.N. resolution was the first time an American administration declined to veto a Security Council resolution critical of Israel and opposed by her.
The resolution is groundbreaking, and pledges the territory captured by Israel in 1967 to a Palestinian state.
It would remove Yerushalayim and the Kosel Maaravi from Israeli sovereignty.
It is one-sided, placing the blame for the stagnated peace process squarely on Israel.
President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have sold Israel out.
The first four are demonstrably false.  The fifth, too.