By Rabbi Michael Meyerstein
(JTA) — I last appeared before a judge 40 years ago when I tried fighting an “unjust” speeding ticket. That didn’t go so well. As they say, “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.” My takeaway: pay the fine and don’t add insult to injury by paying court costs.
But this year, in the waning days of Elul, when Jews began reflecting about the upcoming High Holiday season, I stood before three different judges — not in traffic court but in immigration court. And not as an attorney nor, thankfully, as a respondent — a foreign-born person charged by the Department of Homeland Security with violating immigration law and facing deportation proceedings.
No, I stood as a privileged white American naturalized citizen. I stood as an online-trained ABA court observer to monitor and document immigration court hearings, as a way of holding America’s court system accountable. I stood as a rabbi spiritually tormented by today’s troubling headlines and disturbing images regarding our government’s treatment of immigrants, the very strangers the Torah commands us 36 times to welcome. And I stood as a fellow human filled with empathy for those who bravely traversed perilous terrains, with children in tow, to reach the fabled, promised land of freedom, safety and opportunity.
Some respondents have bounced around the courts since 2013. Each appearance is fraught with fear, trembling and angst about their fate. After all, a courtroom setting can be daunting and foreboding. I sat just 10 feet — or a virtual connection away — from these modestly dressed respondents who stare nervously at the judge. And I thought about the coming Yom Kippur holiday, when I would ponder God’s decree about me in the Book of Life. Would it be a decree of life or death, prosperity or hardship?
I quietly imagined these frightened immigrants reciting their own personalized version of our millennium-old Unetanah Tokef prayer:
Who shall live freely in America AND who shall be forcibly (or by self removal) shipped to countries rife with political persecution? Who shall remain united with loved ones AND who shall fester in a rat-infested jail cell? Who shall realize their fondest dreams AND who shall return to a land where opportunity is harvested only by the elite? Who shall have access to Costco’s abundances AND who shall barely survive on crumbs? Who shall leave the courtroom with renewed hope AND who shall leave hopeless? Who shall be lucky to get another deportation delay AND who shall be unlucky to receive notice of final removal from the United States?
