Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor

Remembering (and singing) the message at the base of the Statue of Liberty

Dear Friends,

Engraved on a bronze plaque mounted inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is a sonnet, The New Colossus. It was composed in 1883 by the Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus. Lazarus names the statue “Mother of Exiles”, who calls out, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The Statue of Liberty would forever be identified with these words. Irving Berlin, who as a young boy escaped Russia with his family and sailed into New York Harbor, many decades later set Lazarus’ words to music. In this video I share more about these stories, and recite and sing the poem.

During this time when immigrants are being treated so cruelly, when the ruling powers make up racist nonsense about “real Americans”, I want to remind us that, with the exception of the First Nations peoples, literally all of us are recent arrivals. Some of us came willingly, fleeing persecution or seeking a better life. Others came against their will, in chains. But we all came from somewhere else, and our nation is built on the ever-expanding premise that regardless of origin, all of us are created equal, and endowed with unalienable rights. It is this sublime idea that truly makes America great.

Here is the sonnet:

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-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

With love,

Rabbi Jonathan Kligler

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