To actually see the Statue of Liberty up close is an amazing experience. The size is awe inspiring. And the message of the statue is extremely powerful as a physical representation of this country’s finest values — freedom, and later opportunity for immigrants in a pluralistic America. The drama of a visit hits home for adults, but also for kids as my four year old daughter took in the grandeur and excitement of the experience and ran around the island with her arm raised high in her Statue of Liberty pose.
The statue also has special resonance for me because I am the President of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Our organization’s roots go back to the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society and 1881. I feel a direct connection to the statue because an early volunteer for our organization has a special connection to the Statue of Liberty and its identity as an icon of American immigration. This young American poet of Sephardic Jewish heritage — Emma Lazarus — worked for HEAS in 1883 helping to care for the early wave of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe who had begun to arrive in New York.
As described in Esther Schor’s wonderful biography of Emma Lazarus, Emma’s work with the Jewish immigrants was the experience that broke her out of her fully assimilated life and helped her to link her life to Jewish causes and concerns. And yet her poem, The New Colossus which was written to raise money to build the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, stands as one of the most moving statements of America’s welcome to all immigrants of all backgrounds, and really to the meaning of America itself. I see Emma Lazarus’ merging of her Jewish and American values and concerns as an inspiring example of how I, and other American Jews who cherish our community’s passion for the United States as a nation of immigrants, should experience our country.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883
