JALSA in JewishBoston.com on Helping Migrant Families

Full article at this link.

Excerpt from How Jewish Organizations Are Helping Migrant Families

The Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA) has been actively working with and supporting immigrant organizations for years. In early August, JALSA CEO Cindy Rowe received an urgent weekend email: “All Hands on Deck: Emergency Meeting for Family Shelter, Affordable Housing, and Services” from Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, along with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute and the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless.

JALSA was invited to an intimate meeting with top Massachusetts lawmakers. It was time to act. So, Rowe quickly coordinated with Jewish Family Service of Metrowest (JFS), the only Jewish organization handling refugee and asylum work in all of Eastern Massachusetts and Worcester—which is currently caring for 52 families, including babies and children. At the meeting, Rowe offered policy suggestions based on JFS’s experience, later going to the Massachusetts State House for Healey’s official declaration.

“JALSA will be there, fully showing up with our faith-based values and providing our policy and legal expertise in this time of emergency need for migrant families,” Rowe says. “Our big mission is to pursue social, economic, environmental and racial justice through community organizing, and advocacy, education and legal strategies. We’re steeped in immigration because it’s connected to our Jewish values. It’s about treating all people with dignity and respect, loving our neighbors as ourselves and the pursuit of justice.”

In addition to the essential public policy strategy and community organizing efforts, there’s also an overarching sense of social justice that permeates the work. Many families arrive here scared and displaced, without basic necessities—emotional and otherwise. Some are afraid of backlash and hatred. It’s a destabilizing, frightening experience that these organizations seek to ameliorate.

“We want migrant families to understand that they’re welcome in our commonwealth, that our communities are looking forward to them being part of our neighborhoods, their children coming to our schools and them enriching our communities,” Rowe says. “We also want to send the message that acts of hate by extremist groups will not be tolerated in our state. That’s not who we are.”