New Jersey Jews Spend Passover Sabbath Outside Frelinghuysen’s Office

They arrived at U.S. Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen’s Morristown office to speak with him about issues of “welcoming and love,” central themes of the Passover story. That’s how the rabbis and congregants of two Montclair synagogues - Bnai Keshet and Congregation Shomrei Emunah - ended their Passover Sabbath on Saturday evening.

According to a joint release from Bnai Keshet and Shomrei Emunah, the “liberation ceremony” focused on liberation issues resonant with the Passover story, including the themes of “welcoming, loving, embracing the stranger as it pertains to immigrants and refugees.”

“The central message of Passover is to remember we were strangers in Egypt,” Bnai Keshet Rabbi Elliott Tepperman told Patch, who led the ceremony alongside Shomrei Emunah's Rabbi David Greenstein.

“In every generation we are obligated to treat immigrants and other non-residents with compassion and fairness,” Tepperman continued. “This is a part of the Jewish narrative that we remember and we live every day. We celebrated liberation havdallah outside of Congressman Frelinghuysen's office. It is our hope that in the near future we will meet with him to discuss how best to express this value through policies that welcome immigrants and refugees.”

• See related article: Montclair Adopts ‘Welcoming Community’ Resolution To Protect Immigrants (VIDEO)
• See related article: WATCH: Frelinghuysen Criticized At Essex County Town Hall

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Photos: Tamar Arieh

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