LR rabbi protests migrant treatment

Rabbi Barry Block of Temple B’nai Israel was one of approximately 70 rabbis nationwide who made a pilgrimage to the U.S.-Mexico border this week to protest ongoing humanitarian crises involving migrants.

According to a news release from the Central Conference of American Rabbis — the main Reform Judaism group of the U.S. and Canada — the group headed toward the border Monday to call attention to migrants staying on the Paso Del Norte Bridge in El Paso, Texas; migrants and refugees in El Paso being released without access to resources; and migrant children being held in a tent city surrounded barbed wire in Tornillo, Texas. The effort by the rabbis was described as “a bold new effort to mobilize faith communities (particularly Jewish faith communities) around the issues of immigrant justice and human rights.”

Block said he flew to El Paso on Wednesday, where he represented the Central Conference of American Rabbis at the “Let Our Families Go” pilgrimage.

“American Jews know and have experienced the benefits of a generous immigration policy and the disastrous results of a cruel immigration policy,” Block said. “

“... We identify strongly with those who would seek freedom in the land of the free, and we will continue to raise our voices to support them.”