Should America accomodate Europeans fleeing anti-Semitism? Isn't that what Israel's for?

Benjamin Sarlin writes in the N.Y. Sun: Following a recent fact-finding trip to Europe, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn in the NY State Assembly, Dov Hikind, said yesterday he is convinced that anti-Semitism has made life intolerable for Jews in England, France, Germany, and Belgium.

At a dinner tonight organized by the New York Association for New Americans, he said he plans to call on President Bush to accord special refugee status to Western European Jews.

While Western European Jews would likely fail to qualify as persecuted refugees under State Department standards, America has made rare exceptions for certain groups in the past, including Jews and other religious minorities in the former Soviet Union who qualified as refugees under the 1989 Lautenberg Amendment. Mr. Hikind wants this treatment extended to Western European Jews.

Mayor Ron Nachman of the city of Ariel, Israel gave DemoCast News his thoughts on this news during his visit to Los Angeles.

He pondered, " The home of the Jewish people is Israel. Why move them to America now when they'll only have to move to Israel eventually, anyway?"