FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 22, 2019
U.S. Jewish Movements: President Trump Must Fire Stephen Miller
WASHINGTON – In response to the revelation that White House senior advisor Stephen Miller circulated bigoted emails in 2015 and 2016, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism joined the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Rabbinical Assembly, Reconstructing Judaism, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Union of Reform Judaism to release the following statement:
As entities who represent a broad diversity of American Jewish life, we share a deep concern about White House advisor Stephen Miller’s support for white supremacist ideology and the disturbing ways in which his dangerous views have influenced U.S. immigration policy. Such views have no place in the White House or as a basis of American policy.
On November 12, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report detailing emails that White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller had sent during 2015 and 2016 in which he shared “white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage.” Such views are reprehensible on their own, but they are entirely unacceptable for someone tasked with shaping the laws, interests, and values of the United States. We reject claims that criticism of Mr. Miller’s views is antisemitic. His personal faith should not be called into question but also should not be used to shield him from legitimate criticism.
This nation was founded and has been strengthened by immigrants seeking religious freedom and opportunity. Indeed, some of our country’s lowest moments have been when we have excluded or discriminated against groups based on their nationality or heritage, including our brutally oppressive treatment of Native Americans, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and the immigration quotas imposed in 1924 that disproportionately restricted Jews, Italians, Greeks and Poles, with devastating consequences for those later fleeing Nazi brutality.
Throughout history, Jews have been forced by persecution and discrimination to leave their homes in search of safety and security. We have also been the targets of vicious libels and dangerous stereotyping that have fomented mistrust and, alarmingly, as has been occurring again in our own country, acts of tragic and deadly violence. Both history and contemporary experience make us especially sensitive to any efforts that classify fellow human beings as “other.” We are all made in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect.
We call on President Trump to dismiss Stephen Miller immediately and to make clear that white supremacy has no place in the White House or the United States of America.
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The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism, whose nearly 850 congregations across North America encompass 1.5 million Reform Jews, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, whose membership includes more than 2,000 Reform rabbis. Visit www.rac.org for more.
