The New Colossus

The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus

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!”

Like every Jewish school child, I learned about Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) in Hebrew School and felt pride that these words, which grace the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, were written by a fellow Jew. It was the violent anti-Semitism of the Russian and German pogroms in the early 1880s that radicalized Lazarus’ poetry, and led to the passion about immigration that she expresses in her seminal work.
Love,
Lilly