As it turned out, over 200 passengers of the S.S. St. Louis died in the Holocaust. Others survived, but many lived through death camps and persecution. Perhaps no story does more to convey how simple carelessness on the part of the public is the true enabler of a larger evil.

Jews and other Americans are taught this history to ensure the next time another people face their possible destruction, the public will not act with such carelessness. And yet, this same story is happening again right now, and we are reacting with much the same carelessness.

Everyone likes to imagine they would support the admittance of Jewish refugees to the U.S. if they were alive in 1939. But Jews were extremely unpopular at the time - what would you do if that moment occurred today, with Muslim refugees?

The Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing ISIS and the instability in the Middle East face a similar challenge as the Jews who fled the Nazis. They are also fleeing an oppressive regime that cares nothing for human life or their wellbeing, but are forced to flee to lands where they are demonized and dehumanized. They’ve left their friends, and their possessions, and their communities to bravely escape hell on earth, journeying across continents on foot only to be cursed at by many upon their arrival. They should be celebrated as heroes who took great risks to preserve their lives and the lives of their children, who stand in the tradition of generations of immigrants who built this country.

Instead, they’re greeted by assholes like this guy, who wants to subject refugees to a test of their religion before we decide whether to admit them.

Christians Only!

Ted Cruz and other politicians who oppose resettling Syrian refugees in the U.S. are modern day versions of the politicians who said the passengers should not be allowed off the S.S. St. Louis. The 24 governors who signed measures opposing refugees resettling in their state are essentially arguing the refugees should be shipped back to danger in a land ruled by fascists we helped create.

How fucked up and evil do you have to be to support a war that destroys another country you don’t understand, and then bar refugees from that war from moving to your country? The War in Iraq led directly to ISIS’ rise, and yet it’s many of the same politicians who supported the war that are now making a point of opposing refugees settling in the U.S. It’s a bit like burning down an entire neighborhood to punish one shitty person, and then not letting any of the other (now homeless) neighbors crash on your couch while they look for housing.

Every time a conservative politicians bellows against the threat posed by Islam, replace “Muslim” with “Jew,” and see how that feels. The only difference is time — our children will see this racist anti-Islamic rhetoric as backwards and pathetic as anti-Semitism looks today. We would expect most Americans would support accepting Jewish refugees today — we should treat Muslim refugees exactly the same way.

Demonizing Syrian and Iraqi refugees is not just evil — it’s also stupid. As the Nazis were eager to use the fate of the S.S. St Louis to demonstrate that no country wanted the Jews, ISIS is eager to show that refugees are unwanted by the West. The conservative politicians inveighing against the threat these refugees pose are playing directly into the hands of ISIS. The rhetoric of a war between Islam and the West is exactly the type of polarization ISIS needs to continue recruiting foreign fighters.

There is a much longer, larger piece to be written about how the policies these politicians support gave rise to the refugee crisis in the first place: how our dependence on fossil fuels leads to support for a Saudi regime that funded ISIS’ rise; how our racist view of the world leads to accepting the oppression of foreign people’s as the natural order of things; how our dependence on military intervention to achieve political goals creates generations of others who hate us. A full view of the crisis facing the Middle East and Europe will show that whether violence arrives as terror or as imperialism, that the root causes are the same.

And yet, for now, it is enough to ask simply, “How would we want others to act, if we were in their position?” A Christian might ask, “what would Jesus do?” As a Jew, it’s easy enough to imagine how it might feel to be a Syrian refugee.

When we say, “Never again,” it has to mean for anyone.