UK rabbi warns of genocide risk in Trump policies

Source: Guardian


Dehumanisation has ended in atrocities says Jewish leader, while pressure grows on May to attack child separation policy

Toby Helm and James Tapper
Sat 23 Jun 2018 16.29 EDT

A leading British rabbi draws a chilling parallel between Donald Trump’s policies on immigration – which have seen thousands of children separated from their parents on the US border with Mexico – and historical trends that have led to genocide, as pressure grows on Theresa May to denounce the US president’s approach on his UK visit next month.

The intervention by Laura Janner-Klausner, the senior rabbi of Reform Judaism – a progressive section of the Jewish community – comes as church leaders, politicians and the children’s commissioner for England voice their outrage at what they see as inhumane treatment of families in the US, and a wider, dangerous dehumanisation of public debate on immigration.

Janner-Klausner told the Observer that the warning signs were clear, and that political leaders had to act now to prevent the kind of decline in respect for fellow human beings that became commonplace before some of the worst atrocities in history.

Expressing concerns widely shared among Jewish leaders – who campaign constantly to remind the world of circumstances leading to the Holocaust – and other religious figures, she said: “The numbing of empathy, the dehumanisation of other people through the encouragement of disdain are documented stages in history that have led to atrocities and even genocides.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/23/british-rabbi-trump-immigration-policy-like-genocide-theresa-may-visit