O.F.I.R. webmaster note on the use of religion for purposes of furthering open borders
An introduction to the article by Steven Steinlight (below)

O.F.I.R. is a secular organization which neither endorses religious beliefs, nor seeks to sway others from such beliefs.  A number of religious leaders have attempted in recent years to state that the bible contains an explicit endorsement of open borders policies by way of the 19th chapter of an old testament book known as Leviticus.  An examination of that pro-mass immigration claim utilizing the work of biblical and torah scholarship shows such a statement to be inconsistent with the meaning of the words and context within the biblical chapter.

The pro-mass immigration forces often quote a passage concerning the Hebrew term “Ger v’tohshav" from the nineteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus (in the old testament), as somehow showing that the bible, or God, supports unrestrained immigration.  If we actually read the book of Jewish religious laws which is Leviticus, we see the context in which the term “Ger v’tohshav" is utilized.

 The Israelites are recorded to have left Palestine for Egypt in the book of Genesis due to a famine.  The Israelites eventually returned to the area of Palestine as recorded in the book of Exodus.  After having re-conquered Palestine, the Israelite leaders fashioned a code of laws governing Jewish and non-Jewish people.  In the intervening years, between the events of exit in Genesis and re-entry after the exodus from Egypt, other non-Jewish tribes (and Jews who had incorporated pagan religious practices) remained in and/or settled in the area of Palestine which had been abandoned by the biblical Israelites.  Upon re-conquering Palestine the Israelites realized that the conquered tribes practiced a form of Cananite (Phoenician) religion which involved child sacrifice to a god called Molech (Phoenician "Ba'al").  The repugnant practice which was widespread in a location outside of Jerusalem in the valley of  Hinnom (an area later referred to as "gehenna" by Christians, and gehinnom in Hebrew, both meaning "hell") is recorded by historians as follows:

Out of reverence for Molech (Ba'al) the Cannanites (Phoenicians) whenever seeking to obtain some great favor, offered one of their children, burning it as a sacrifice to the deity if they are especially eager to gain success.  The high-priests of the sect would order mass drumming to begin such that the parents and worshippers would not hear the agony which the child underwent at the beginning of the immolation (burning).

The Israelites who had returned from Egypt were outraged at such a horrific practice and in anger often sought to kill the conquered people who supported such beliefs.  The nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, far from being a welcoming tract for immigrants, is rather, a largely an attempt by the Jewish leaders to stop the genocide against the newly subject tribes and those believers in the religion of Molech.  Instead of killing, the writings of Leviticus include among other issues, the recommendation to seek opportunities for indentured servitude (a term translated as enslavement) of such peoples, and the rules under which such servitude could be compelled. 

In any event, the "ger" or sojourner in Leviticus is someone inferior to an Israelite, and with an emphasis on what the Jews inferred as the ger's temporary status in Israel.  The ancient Israelites and their modern equivalent, the religious (Mizrachi) Zionists, believed and believe that only religious Jews were meant to inhabit Israel.  The the KJV (King James Version of the bible) translates "ger" as "stranger".  According to Strong's Biblical Concordance, the Hebrew word in question (Ger) means:
1.)  sojourner
2.) a temporary inhabitant, a newcomer lacking inherited rights of foreigners in Israel, though conceded rights

The use of the word "ger" in modern Hebrew, nearly three thousand years after Leviticus, has come to be associated with a convert to Judaism.   To be Jewish in Israel in the time of Leviticus or even today confers a legal classification upon an individual.   Climbing over a border fence into Israel confers no right to be considered a "Jewish," anymore than being merely present at the time of Leviticus allowed "foreigners" the ability to claim full rights ascribed only to the citizens, the Israelites.

In summary, the attempt by pro-mass immigration religious leaders to utilize the 19th chapter of the book of Leviticus as support for their position is both logically and contextually incorrect.  Many or most of the people whom the Israelites defeated to reclaim dominance over Palestine were descendants of indigenous peoples of Palestine (relative to the conquering Israelites who were born outside of the land in question).  In other words, the newly subject peoples of Molech were not "immigrants" in the sense of for example, Italians for Mexicans coming to the United States.   Nowhere in Leviticus do we find an invitation for people outside of Israel, such as those of neighboring Syria or Lebanon,  to enter into into Israel via immigration or invasion.  The "ger" then were largely the the non-Israelites who found themselves to have been over-run by an invading army.   Furthermore, we should be wary of anyone endorsing a literal application the text of Leviticus to our society.   Leviticus allowed and encouraged indentured servitude, which of course was made illegal in the United States by the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution.   In no rationale sense can the writings of Leviticus be taken as support for illegal immigration or for an open border policy for the United States.  A religious leaders today who would so confuse biblical context and writings of the book which they are paid to proclaim reflects an inexcusable lack of intellectual effort and scholarship.  

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[Note: This article was written prior to the election of President Obama, when President Bush was pushing amnesty for illegal residents]

Cease Citing Bible To Defend Immigration Bill(s)

By Steven Steinlight

April 23, 2007

Center For Immigration Studies

It would be virtually impossible to unearth a single statement by a mainstream American Jewish leader in support of President Bush’s “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” that does not cite Leviticus 19. Citation of the passage is as ubiquitous as mainstream Jewish organizational support is monolithic in backing Bush’s bill and its provisions: exponentially increased immigration, guest worker programs and the amnestying of illegal aliens.

Many critics of this legislation, which will de facto result in an America with open borders, argue that its underlying purpose is to create a vast underclass of impoverished Mexican immigrants — who will be exploited as cheap labor at the direct expense of America’s most vulnerable, in particular poor African Americans.

That clearly comports neither with Jewish values nor Jewish attitudes toward immigration — especially the clear line most Jews draw between legal and illegal immigration. Indeed, survey research shows that most ordinary American Jews, like the great majority of ordinary Americans, oppose the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act.” The mainstream Jewish leadership, however, has chosen to disregard the majority of the Jewish community and back Bush’s bill — and it seems the only defense they can offer for their obduracy is Leviticus 19.

Mainstream Jewish organizations can’t get enough of Leviticus 19 — “When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The biblical passage is the routine rhetorical climax, the putative ace in mainstream Jewish groups’ hand. Drenched with scriptural authority, it’s presumably unassailable. Leviticus 19 supports Bush’s immigration bill, end of story.

Or is it?

Mainstream Jewish organizations cite ancient Leviticus 19 like a contemporary policy recommendation, as though the Torah’s authors were policy wonks with foreknowledge of 21st-century America’s immigration debate. It’s disturbingly reminiscent of the lunatics who believe they’ve broken the Bible Code, deciphering names like Reid, Kennedy and Hagel buried in Scripture — though it’s unlikely their numerology will uncover Sensenbrenner’s, Tancredo’s or any Blue Dog Democrats’.

Leviticus 19 is one of Judaism’s greatest ethical statements. It makes empathy, and even love, for non-Jews a binding duty, asserting ethical universalism and reminding us that the God who commands it is the God of all humankind, not only of Jews. Moreover, this universalism is exceptional; strictures surrounding it are addressed to the Children of Israel as a people set apart, a “chosen people.”

Leviticus 19, like other passages throughout the Bible, demands special treatment for orphans, widows and strangers. Status among Israelite tribes, like other ancient peoples until Athenian democracy, was determined by ownership of land. Since orphans, widows and strangers lacked it, provision was made for their welfare, such as allowing them to glean the corners of the fields for sustenance.

Leviticus 19, however, is not Judaism’s only word on the treatment of strangers, and it is in reading other biblical passages that it becomes clear that key terms have been mistranslated for what can only be political purposes. The word in the Bible for stranger is “Ger v’tohshav.” The precise English equivalent is sojourner.

“Ger v’tohshav” is first used in Genesis 4:23 to describe Abraham when he dwells briefly with the Hittites in Kiryat Arba, what is today Hebron. Richard Elliot Friedman, a leading authority on biblical language, translates the term as “alien” and “visitor.” And every English dictionary defines sojourn as a temporary stay. Given this translation, this passage has absolutely no utility to those, including leaders of mainstream Jewish organizations, who argue that 12 million illegal aliens should be permitted to remain permanently in the United States. Indeed, it furnishes excellent ammunition for the anti-amnesty coalition — that is, were it equally prepared to trivialize scripture.

The term reappears in the last book of the Bible, Chronicles 29:15, in a metaphysical context. King David employs it to contrast the transitory nature of human existence with the eternality of God, creator and steward of the earth on which we briefly dwell as wanderers.

Terms for immigrant or immigration are absent in the Bible, which demands empathy and hospitality for sojourners. Narratives about inclusion are rare. Indeed, we know the rule by the exception — namely, the story of Ruth.

The Bible does address the inclusion of strangers in civil and legal terms in Exodus 12:49, Leviticus 24:22 and Numbers 15:14, which proclaims that there shall be one law for citizens and strangers alike. But it is important to note that while strangers did have rights, they only earned them once they went through what in those days constituted the process of naturalization: circumcision and abandoning idolatry. Strangers were required to strictly obey Israelite law and not undermine the legal fabric of Israelite society.

An exegete could actually cite this text to justify deporting illegal aliens that have violated so many American laws as to threaten the rule of law itself, but I won’t exploit the Bible to make that case.

Leviticus 19 commands us to love the stranger. Bush’s cynical, reactionary bill, you can be certain, is not about love, and Leviticus 19 surely does not command us to exploit strangers as cheap labor or for political gain. Cherry-picking the Bible to support a shameful scheme to exploit poor immigrants at the expense of impoverished Americans to engorge the wealth of rich employers is a sacrilege. Why not just cite the Wall Street Journal?

Mainstream Jewish groups can cite Leviticus 19 all they want, but the Torah simply does not take a position, pro or con, on Bush’s “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act.” The Torah is not for open borders or for reduced immigration. God is not a Democrat and a liberal, nor a Republican and conservative, nor even a moderate or independent.

God is ineffable. The divinely inspired human beings that recorded God’s vision for humankind sought to make us ethical, reverential beings; they did not set political litmus tests.

Seeking to turn God into a partisan of one’s cause is spiritually arrogant and repugnant. It’s reminiscent of the behavior of Islamist mullahs, supremacist Christians, Frankish crusaders chanting “Gott Mit Uns” and all the basketball players that ever crossed themselves before taking a free throw. Jews should know better.

Dr. Stephen Steinlight, senior policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C, was the former national affairs director at the American Jewish Committee.