DURHAM, N.C. (RNS) — Over the previous five years, people of Judea Reform Congregation possess helped resettle 13 refugee households from such international locations as Afghanistan, Haiti, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela. Numerous its volunteers are aloof caring for them. They lately despatched the refugee households a spring food present basket to celebrate Ramadan, Nowruz and Easter.
Welcoming refugees is aloof a core mission of the synagogue, nonetheless no new refugees will likely be welcomed at the annual Refugee Shabbat commemoration this weekend. With President Donald Trump’s govt expose, signed the day of his inauguration, all refugee admissions possess been frozen, excluding Afrikaners, South African white farmers, of which 2,000 possess been resettled throughout the U.S.
As a replacement, at Friday night (March 13) providers and products, the congregation will hear from the first Latina member of the Durham Metropolis Council in regards to the town’s efforts to welcome immigrants. Subsequent month, volunteers from this synagogue will meet up with the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Durham to originate a stitching circle for Afghan females who possess been resettled in the place in the previous few years. Volunteers from both congregations will drive the females to the stitching circle and offer free day like their children.
Refugee Shabbat was began in 2018 by HIAS, the Jewish refugee resettlement company, to serve Jewish congregations to be conscious where they come from and recommit to helping others. This yr almost about 200 congregations throughout the country possess signed up to host a Refugee Shabbat event. “Acceptable now, with all that’s going down spherical the country, the energy stage is amazingly excessive in the Jewish community to be taking fling, and Refugee Shabbat is per chance the most provocative factor to attain,” acknowledged Rebecca Kirzner, a spokesperson for HIAS.
Based in 1881 in New York to lend a hand Jews fleeing persecution in a foreign country, HIAS, formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Attend Society, now helps non-Jewish refugees essentially.
Marian Abernathy, who heads Reform Judea’s Refugee Resettlement & Immigrant Justice team, acknowledged the congregation is as ready to attain the work as in the previous. “The commitment internal Judea Reform hasn’t wavered,” she acknowledged. “Americans surely feel surely dedicated to welcoming the stranger and to loving our neighbor. We’re making an strive to resolve out the disclose techniques for us to proceed to have interaction and beef up them.”
Three faith-based mostly resettlement businesses — HIAS, Church World Service and Lutheran Crew Products and providers Northwest — sued the administration on behalf of 120,000 refugees who had already been vetted and screened in a foreign country to come to the U.S. when the ban was issued. Several thousands already had booked their stir to the U.S.
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Closing week, in a setback for advocates of refugees, the ninth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals in California reversed a U.S. District Court docket’s ruling ordering the authorities to allow those beforehand authorised for resettlement to come to the U.S. The case is ongoing.
In January, the Trump administration went additional with a new policy allowing the Department of Fatherland Security to detain and rescreen refugees already in the U.S. nonetheless who possess no longer but got a inexperienced card. About 100 such refugees dwelling in Minnesota were lately detained as piece of Operation PARRIS (Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening). On Feb. 27, a federal establish issued an injunction prohibiting the detention of refugees who possess applied for nonetheless no longer but got their inexperienced cards. The injunction applies most effective to Minnesota.
HIAS is suing the authorities on this policy together with the Jewish Household Service of Western Massachusetts. In all, HIAS is serious about seven correct challenges to the Trump administration’s refugee ban and immigration enforcement agenda.
For Jews whose folks, grandparents or sizable-grandparents came to the U.S. to discover away oppression and persecution or to discover new opportunities, immigration is a core American Jewish abilities. Many recoiled in scare at the extensive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Rabbi Matthew Soffer in his space of enterprise at Judea Reform Congregation on March 10, 2026, in Durham, N.C. He went to Minneapolis to stand in solidarity with that city’s residents for the length of the extensive immigration dragnet there. (RNS photo/Yonat Shimron)
Rabbi Matthew Soffer of Judea Reform in Durham traveled there in leisurely January after organizers issued a requirement clergy to come and test up on what was going down there. “I used to be a bit afraid that I might perhaps maybe well come home more miserable having witnessed a authorities that is abducting human beings and making them fade,” acknowledged Soffer. “And what blew me away was how noteworthy and how fierce the flamboyant is among all the folks that are losing the entire lot and asking, ‘How can I lend a hand?’”
Soffer was at the Minneapolis airport heading lend a hand to Durham when Alex Pretti, a 37-yr-dilapidated American intensive care nurse, was shot and killed by immigration brokers. Soffer determined to stop several more days to be in solidarity and offer comfort to folks in the town.
“There is one thing about this moment that is making it determined to folks in our community that here is precisely what our custom instructions when it comes to response,” Soffer added. “It’s at these moments after they topic most.”
He is conscious of his congregation is in the lend a hand of him. And whereas there are no longer any new refugees arriving in the terminate to future, people of Judea Reform proceed to work with those who arrived forward of Trump’s ban.
A handful of Judea Reform volunteers pack and express boxes of food from the Emanuel Meals Pantry to refugee households every week. They coach folks wanting to pass a driver’s license take a look at or working toward a talented certificate that will allow them to pass into better, better paying jobs, or records them how they can practice for monetary abet to attend college.
“I need to lend a hand folks gaze what it formula to be a neighbor and no longer correct be taught Torah about what roughly neighbor now we possess to be, nonetheless surely discover closer to our neighbors,” Soffer acknowledged. “We’re surely making an strive to translate our story into our possess duties.”
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