A good story about Chicago (Syrian refugees)

[frazzled]

On Friday afternoon, a group of suburban synagogue members clustered at O’Hare International Airport, waiting to greet one of the last Syrian refugee families to be accepted in the United States, to give them the warmest possible welcome to a country that no longer wanted their kind.

In Washington, the presidential limousine was already speeding toward the Pentagon, where President Trump would sign a paper officially slamming the door shut on Syrian refugees. But here the volunteers had yellow roses, more warm coats than the newcomers would need and, a few miles away, an apartment ready with a doormat that said “welcome” in 17 languages. . . .They had already committed to helping guide and care for the newcomers for six months.

. . .

Some of the volunteers were children or grandchildren of refugees. Their synagogue, Am Shalom (“Nation of Peace”) in Glencoe, Ill., displays a statue depicting members’ families who perished at the Nazis’ hands. The Syrian family, and the president’s orders, were coming on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, some of the volunteers noted with tears in their eyes. A hundred synagogue members had contributed in some way to helping resettle the Syrians: renting an apartment steps from a playground, assembling a vacuum cleaner, lining up juice boxes in the refrigerator.

Some of the synagogue members had signed on instinctually, so the Syrians would be helped the way their own parents or grandparents had been aided when they arrived in the United States. Others had joined as a way of countering Mr. Trump — just a few of the many Americans, of varied backgrounds, reacting with shock, outrage and concern to his curtailment of the country’s long-established refugee resettlement system.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/us/refugees-syria-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

[mopinko]

1. how the blue do it .