Most Jews in America were born here, so it's easy to forget the remarkable combination of courage, vision, and sacrifice that it takes to move to a new place, surrounded by a foreign culture, language, and expectations. It's easy for those of us whose ancestors showed such pluck to look with scorn upon today's immigrants - those brave souls who most resemble our grandparents and great-grandparents - and to see them as threatening "our" way of life or "our" jobs, just as earlier Americans viewed our families when they first arrived here.
Today's Torah portion portrays one of our earliest ancestors, the Patriarch Isaac, as an undesired alien, blamed for being industrious and prosperous, and expelled by the anti-immigrant bigots of his day. Isaac, during a time of famine, moved his family to Gerar, a region inhabited by the Philistines and their king, Avimelekh. In a new land, like so many other immigrants, Isaac turned to agricultural work to support himself and his loved ones. The Torah records that "Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year." His willingness to work so hard (perhaps at jobs that the Philistines considered beneath their dignity) earned him only the jealousy and animosity of the surrounding people: "the Philistines envied him."
The Philistines responded to Isaac's willingness to accept back-breaking labor, and his ensuing devotion to his family and his people, by trying to cut off his access to the bounty of the region: "the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father's servants had dug...filling them with earth." Apparently, only the native-born Philistines were entitled to the basic necessities of life, the immigrant Isaac would have to do without.
Ultimately, their attempt to deprive Isaac of all social support was but the first step in a campaign whose ultimate goal was expulsion. After cutting off his water, the Philistines finally command Isaac "Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us."
Feeling threatened by the new immigrant Isaac, the Philistines ultimately were content only with his banishment. Rather than respond to his industry by working harder themselves, rather than seeing his presence in their midst as another source of skill and community, rather than seeing the presence of another culture as a source of enrichment, the Philistines preferred to blame Isaac for his admirable drive and diligence, and to see him as a threat to their own existence.
The Philistines of antiquity are not alone in their willingness to blame their own problems on the newcomer and the immigrant. The renovated exhibits at Ellis Island, where most Jewish immigrants came to America's shores, testifies to the continuing appeal of xenophobia (the fear and hatred of foreigners) as a recurrent pattern in American political life, as unscrupulous politicians attempt to distract the voters from their own failings and ride to victory by appealing to the fears and bigotry of the electorate.
At the turn of the century, from 1880 to the mid 1920's, a wave of immigrants came to the United States. The largest group came from Italy, and the second largest were the Jews of eastern Europe. In response to the swelling immigration, nativists launched a campaign to close America's borders to any newcomers who threatened to "dilute America's purity." Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan sponsored speakers and marches to protest that these new immigrants were taking America away from the true Americans, were stealing jobs, contributing to the crime rate, benefiting from American largess, and degrading American culture. The primary targets of this inflammatory rhetoric were Jews, African-Americans, Asians, and Catholics. While there were some brave leaders who stood up for the immigrants (notably Congressman Curley of Boston), the United States Congress ultimately closed off immigration, dooming millions of our relatives to lives of poverty, fear, and suffering in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Ultimately, those Jews and their children were murdered in the Nazi death camps.
Rather than face the real problems of American society and economic life, most politicians preferred to coddle their constituents and to distract them by blaming the immigrants who, after all, had no vote. Yet the benefits that this wave of immigrants and their children brought to America - in the realms of culture, scholarship, science, government, and commerce - contributed to our greatness as a world power during the Second World War and beyond.
Philistines of all ages prey on fear and hatred, bigotry and greed. We, the children of immigrants, and the descendants of Isaac, need only recall that hatred of immigrants was directed against us earlier in this century. We need only recall that in the struggle between the hateful Philistines and the immigrant Isaac, God blesses Isaac and takes his side. Ultimately, the Philistines realize the riches that industrious immigrants can bring, telling Isaac that "we now see plainly that Adonai has been with you."
The Philistines of our age would do well to ponder the story of the immigrant Isaac, and to recall that the most frequently repeated verse in the Torah is "You shall have one law for yourself and the stranger who dwells in your midst."
Shabbat shalom.