Illustration
IllustrationFlash 90

Last week, a group of haredi businessmen from Borough Park in Brooklyn visited businesses in the neighborhood owned by Yemenite immigrants whose families had been arrested at the airport as a result of Trump’s temporary travel ban.

According to the businessmen, the ban indiscriminately lumps together guilty parties with those whose only goal is to support their families. “People friendly to the local population who were hurt by the order when their families were arrested at the airport,” was how the businessmen described the refugees.

Trump's ban, however, is meant to be temporary, until a better vetting procedure can be instituted, a fact which the businessman may not be aware of.

“We live here in the US among thousands of Muslims,” said Yoel Levin, one of the businessmen. “New York in general, and Brooklyn in particular are centers of immigration. We’re not living among the white working-class from conservative states, where Trump’s popularity and hatred of the establishment reigns, we’re living among millions of minorities. Around Borough Park there are close to half a million Muslims, good and quiet people, from Pakistan and India, Palestinian Authority areas, Syria, Turkey, Bangladesh, and Yemen. In our houses and in our public space work thousands of immigrants from Mexico, Chinese, Eastern Europeans, Pakistani doctors operate on our sick in the hospitals, and Turkish taxi drivers provide service to our children.”

Levin said that he and his friends established a group of public figures to lobby against the order. “Without getting into political dynamics of whether new processes are rooted in security needs or political steps, the fact is that minorities feel threatened, and we need to show them our solidarity. Thus, according to the instruction of the Rabbis, we established a group of public figures with heart who will show solidarity with our neighbors in their time of trouble.”

He emphasized that “this is not a political group, and it does not have political aspirations. We just see the good of the matter - showing compassion and sympathy to people in tough times, and of course preventing hatred and strife in a city full of immigrants and refugees.”

“The nation which suffered, and still suffers, so much from anti-Semitic hatred, must be wary of any type of racism or hatred. If the immigrant communities see that the haredi community belittles them and their feelings - it will not add peace and stability in our neighborhoods.”