Kindertransport Survivors and over Tzelem 100 Rabbis asked Prime Minister David Cameron to step up support for refugees
Survivors and Rabbis from across the Jewish religious spectrum today delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street urging a quicker response to the refugee crisis.
Two child refugees, Mr Ernest Simon (Kindertransport, born Vienna 1930) and Rabbi Harry Jacobi (unaccompanied child refugee in May 1940, born Berlin 1925) joined a delegation of Rabbis when they hand in a letter to Prime Minister Cameron at Ten Downing Street on Monday morning.
The letter, signed by 105 Rabbis and Cantors from across the Jewish community, asks Mr Cameron to take the story of the Kinderstransport as his inspiration in responding to the refugee crisis, calling it “the light of human kindness that shines into the darkest corners of history”, and asks that ten thousand refugees at the minimum be offered asylum into Great Britain in the next six months.
The Rabbis also call on the government to re-examine the current UK asylum practise in order to deliver a long term solution, and to help integrate refugees into the workforce so that they will be able to provide for themselves rather than be dependant on charitable handouts, pointing out that the highest form of charity is to enable the needy person to become self sufficient.
The Rabbis offer the government their dedicated support in helping with the refugees, offering to help in the effort to find homes, to raise funds for food, clothing and education, and to support a decision of moral courage."
For more information, including the text of the letter and the bio's of the participants, please click here.