In the month of February a 15-year-old girl was forced to flee her country. She was too young to make this decision on her own, so her mother and step-father made the decision they felt was best for her. Her father died when she was just 8 months old, and while life had always been difficult, the last 6 years had been particularly hard as persecution, discrimination and suffering increased for her family. The decision to leave was not taken lightly. Her grandmother, whom she loved dearly, was left behind. When she arrived in her new country, she immediately destroyed her identity card and was taken to live separately from her parents.

That girl was my grandmother. Erica, born in Berlin in 1923, saw the Nazi party come to power when she was 10 and witnessed the events of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, at age 15. Less than a year later she began a new life in London. She never saw her grandmother again; she perished at Theresienstadt in August 1942.

I carry her story with me. Because this is not only her story. It is also my story. And it is our story.

The Jewish story, at the heart of the Torah, is one of a people called to leave their home and travel to a distant place in search of a Promised Land.

Yes, there have been times when we have reached the place we dreamed about, but before long we were searching for a new place to call home, a new place to accept us, a new place to provide refuge. In the Bible we read: we were strangers in the land of Egypt; for countless generations we have fled to and from many Egypts.

I do not know the solution to our immigration crisis of today, but I do know that the Torah calls us to action and commands that we must never stand idly by. My heart breaks as I see children separated from their families, living in intolerable conditions, whose eyes plead with us to do something.

I look at these children as someone who would not be alive today if his grandmother had been unable to find refuge when fleeing from persecution. I look at these children and I realize that I am hugging my own children more tightly and for a moment longer. I look at these children and I know that we are failing them each day that they remain imprisoned, separated from their families.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that when faced with another person’s suffering, people too often ask “if I stop to help this person, what will happen to me?” He posited that the question we should be asking is “If I do not stop to help this person, what will happen to him?” He is correct - our primary question should always be about the person who is suffering; but I am starting to worry that the former question is also relevant. What will happen to us, as a society and as people, if we ignore what is happening right before our eyes.

Over the last few weeks the Holocaust response “Never Again” has echoed at demonstrations against the terrible conditions in which migrants are being held and the unacceptable policy that separates children from parents.

Historian and scholar, Professor Yehuda Bauer, famously suggested in the aftermath of the Holocaust we must add three additional commandments to the original Ten: “thou shalt not be a perpetrator; thou shalt not be a victim; and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.”

When children are being kept behind bars, separated from their families, and lacking many of life’s basic necessities, it is not the time to have a semantic debate about equivalency and the appropriateness of terminology. In this situation, the only thing to do is to heed Bauer’s commandment: thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander. We must do something.

I am proud to be a part of the Boston Jewish community, led by CJP, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies, who have established the Fund for Detained Children. In their words, “CJP is committed to taking care of the stranger, because we know from our own experience what it is like to be immigrants, what it is like to flee, and what it is like to be vulnerable. Showing compassion to those who are suffering is core to our story and our value system.”

I don’t know what the long-term solution is, but I do know that the current situation is unacceptable. I do know that the commandment never to be a bystander echoes in my ears. I do know that we must do something for the people who are suffering, but also for ourselves and the type of society we want to be.

Rabbi Danny Burkeman is senior rabbi of Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland.

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/20190728/burkeman-thou-shalt-never-but-never-be-bystander?fbclid=IwAR0DBMFROptzzCQ7SB1ofA81fJ7uox5oNQZJfT0mkPjjKYAU-PZKhSwWox4