Washington: Hundreds of Jewish studies scholars from across the US on Monday urged the Congress to take immediate action to stop implementation of President Donald Trump's immigration order that bar refugees and travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering America.
"We ask that you, our elected officials, do everything in your power to stop our country from enacting isolationist policies and fencing ourselves off from the world in which we live," they wrote in a letter to all 535 members of Congress signed by more than 200 scholars, Haaretz newspaper reported.
"The 'benefits' of isolationism will pale in comparison to the risks it poses to refugees and immigrants and to the very founding ideals of the United States of America. Those ideals and the people brought to our country as a direct result of them have inspired the best in all of us. Join us in protesting policies and orders that threaten these American ideals and use your positions to advance legal protections for refugees and all classes of immigrants," the letter read.
In the letter, the signatories note that their area of expertise makes them well positioned to warn of the dangers of such restrictions.
"As scholars of Jewish studies, we devote our lives to studying a people defined, in part, by its experiences of expulsion and refugeehood," the professors wrote.
"Throughout their history, Jews have been expelled or barred from entry from countries on the grounds of their perceived threats to security and unity. While Jews found refuge in the US throughout the 19th and early 20th century, in the 1930s and 1940s, Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied countries suffered at the hands of our country’s then-newly enacted restrictive immigration policies," they said.
The signatories plan to share the letter widely on public platforms in cooperation with HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) the only Jewish organisation recognised by the US government and UN agencies to resettle individuals seeking refuge in America, the Israeli paper said.
The letter sent to Congress is the latest initiative of this ad-hoc group of Jewish studies activists in America opposed to Trump.
Meanwhile, protests against Trump's travel ban today intensified, with thousands of angry demonstrators gathering at several airports and streets amid mounting lawsuits and rumblings in the Republican Party over the President's executive order.
An unfazed Trump has insisted his controversial decision was "not a Muslim ban" as the White House doubled down to defend the step as a move to avoid a situation that exists in parts of Europe.
