Selichot Program: A City of Migrants: Today and After WWII

Following the Shoah, New York City absorbed more than 140,000 survivors, including some who would become our own family and friends. In the last year, some 90,000 Latin American migrants have poured into New York, with some 50,000 still in temporary shelters. Like the refugees 75 years ago, today’s asylum seekers are lodged in hotels and empty offices, verifying Mark Twain’s famous observation: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

Journalist Andrew Silverstein wrote a compelling story this month in The Forward about the way today’s asylum crisis parallels the story of Shoah refugees. Please join us on Selichot evening for a conversation with Silverstein, Rabbi Hammerman, Charlie Davidson, who has led AC’s efforts to aid refugees, and our former member Joe Berger, who at 5 years old was among those fleeing Europe for America.

Stay afterward for our Selichot Service to help us prepare ourselves for the High Holidays, remembering that we can only greet the new year with tzedaka, along with prayer and repentance.