The Coalition For Jewish Values (CJV) today welcomed the US Supreme Court decision permitting President Trump to limit entry from six countries known to the US State Department as “presenting heightened concerns about terrorism” as a victory for “common sense.” The Court allowed the bulk of the Trump travel ban to stand, while permitting entry from those with a “bona fide relationship with any person or entity in the United States.”

“This is a common sense decision,” said Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the CJV. “It is only natural that a country needs to maintain its right to refuse entry to anyone coming from a country that has shown hostility to its citizens.”

In particular, the CJV addressed claims by some Jewish groups that Jewish tradition requires open immigration, and the comparison of refugees from current conflicts, e.g. in Syria, to the plight of Jewish refugees from the Nazis of the 1930s. Whereas the Jewish refugees were non-violent, found no country willing to harbor them and were persecuted simply for being Jews, Arabs from Syria are welcomed throughout the Arab world, and most major parties in the current conflict have a history of violence. “While it is true that our Torah commands us to ‘Love the sojourner as yourselves (Leviticus 19:33),'” said Rabbi Schonfeld, “We are equally duty-bound to avoid those nations that display enmity towards us and our values (Deuteronomy 23:4).”

His colleague Rabbi Steven Pruzansky pointed out that “no country allows unlimited immigration,” and added that “nations have a natural and sensible right to limit access based on concerns of security, assimilability, shared values and culture, and other national interests.”