Homeless and Tempest-Tost

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The New Colossus Emma Lazarus 

When we were in New York City several years ago we went on a boat tour of the harbour. 

While we passed by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty we didn't land to read the well-known poem or declaration at the base of the statue. 

Emma Lazarus was the 19th century woman who penned these words, one of the many children in a large and wealthy Jewish family in New York. Many generations before her family members had found their way to the United States after fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Despite her own life of comfort and limited religious conviction she took up the cause of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from the Russia. In 1883, she founded the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews.She was a proponent of establishing a Jewish homeland  years Theodor Herzl began to use the term "Zionism."

Emma Lazarus

Imagine how she would have felt hearing the head head of Citizenship and Immigration Services paraphrasing the passage: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".He added the words "who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge". Then he said that the poem had referred to "people coming from Europe". Of course those destitute Russia Jews Lazarus supported were from Europe but not from one of the countries which 19th leaders considered desirable.

We are witnessing a terrible era in American politics and religion, given that so many supposed Christians support Trump and his administration. Should we be frightened, or saddened, or both?