(Immigrant) Parents, It’s Time to Talk to Your Kids about Israel and Hamas

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Immigrants to the US and Canada don’t have a ton in common beyond a desire for a better life away from their home countries. Sometimes we move just for economic opportunity, other times it’s for environmental, social, political or justice reasons. Regardless, we have had one mostly ironclad agreement — even if it’s just tacit:

We don’t bring our old world conflicts here.

This compact has enabled groups with tremendous, longstanding enmity to live side-by-side in North America with nary more than a protest or a few deranged incidents over generations. Jews and Muslims, Ukranians and Russians, Iraqis and Iranians, Azeris and Armenians, Ethiopians and Eritreans, Chinese and Indians — the list goes on. Every possible permutation of global conflict has its diaspora in the 400+ million residents of North America. And while there are always problems and sporadic violence, they rarely rise to a level beyond suspicion, some peaceful marches, flag waving or avoidance.

We came here for peace and prosperity. We left the old world behind for a reason.

Immigrant groups in the new world have also tended to be more aligned politically rather than less. With some exceptions, the modern Republican party has been generally anti-immigrant, and the Democrats more pro-immigration. Sometimes the parties have different views on a specific conflict (as Russia seems to have made great inroads buying off nutjob Republicans), but for the most part both parties align behind US foreign policy. The race is usually to influence the whole.

Immigrants have generally also made common cause to oppose Nationalism and the ever-present threat of racists who seem to hate all of us, regardless of our skin color. They, we usually agree, are the bigger threat. Not coincidentally, American and Canadian Jewish money, time and effort have been heavily invested in justice here. We have funded and supported strong movements to protect the rights of all minorities but especially Black and Muslim residents when it counted the most. Major institutions like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, as well as major movements like BLM and those for LGBTQ rights have been co-founded, bankrolled and supported by liberal Jews for decades.