Jonathan P. Baird lives in Wilmot.

As a secular Jew, I would not pretend to have any great knowledge of Jewish theology. I was bar mitzvahed and confirmed in the reformed Jewish tradition a long time ago. However, there are some parts of Jewish thought that are so central to the tradition that they are inarguably Jewish.

Judaism emphasizes treating strangers with kindness and compassion. Obviously, that is something that has often not happened in the Jewish world like everyplace else, but the aspiration and practice have to do with the treatment Jews received in Egypt in ancient times. In the book of Deuteronomy, there is a famous passage that reads: “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Passover, for example, is about welcoming the stranger.

That message about the stranger is central to a Jewish perspective on mass deportations of immigrants and their incarceration in concentration camps. More than many groups, Jews have repeatedly been forced to flee and have been subject to expulsion and mass deportation. Being scapegoated, Jews have been herded into ghettos and forced into concentration camps.

I know when I hear of the Trump administration’s plans to deport millions and to build camps to hold detainees, including at Guantanamo, it evokes Jewish history because our people have been subject to that same viciousness.

While most would immediately conjure up World War II, there are earlier parallels. In the early 20th century, immigration to the United States became a hot issue. In 1911, Congress issued a comprehensive study known as the Dillingham Commission Report. It concluded that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, many of them Italians and Jews, posed a threat to American culture and well-being.

A climate of extreme intolerance, nativism and xenophobia developed in the U.S. just as we’re seeing now. Antisemitism reached new levels of acceptance. Historian Erika Lee described this era in her book, America for Americans: “Manhattan upper-class elite barred Jews from the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs, resorts and private schools. Discontented farmers in the Midwest and South who formed a new political party known as the populists blamed Jews, whom they believed controlled the nation’s banks, for their economic suffering. Both Protestant and Catholic religious leaders promoted antisemitic stereotypes of Jews as Christ-killers and as dishonest and greedy businessmen. Eugenicists argued that Jews were irredeemable and biologically inassimilable. The KKK actively promoted Jewish conspiracy theories and charged that they were congenitally incapable of virtue or patriotism.”

The exact same scapegoating that happened to Jews in the early 20th century is happening to those categorized as “illegal immigrants” today. Trump falsely says other countries are emptying out their jails and asylums. Instead of striving to understand why so many people have sought to enter the U.S., Trump unfairly slanders immigrants and fast-tracks them for mass deportation.

Trump has suspended all refugee admissions. He is ending protected status for hundreds of thousands, and he wants to deport millions who are not serious or violent criminals. Many have lived in the U.S. peacefully for over 15 years. Trump is treating all immigrants, including legal and undocumented immigrants, as well as refugees and asylum seekers, as threats.

So many of the immigrants from Central America are here because it became unsafe to live in their home countries. The U.S. financed wars in Central America that created crises of livability in their countries. We have seen the results in the greatly increased numbers coming to the Southern border since 2014, especially children and families.

As a Jewish person, I see immigrants fleeing for their lives as similar to the way Jews tried to escape the Nazi death machine. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 formalized the unwelcoming of Jews in the U.S., mandating tiny entry quotas while the Nazi terror accelerated. Both Britain and the U.S. closed their door to Jewish arrivals. Even after two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population was killed in the Holocaust, in 1947, 250,000 Jews in Western Europe remained in Displaced Persons Camps. No one would take them.

The mass deportation of Jews to concentration camps was the ultimate horror; Trump is only following that cruel tradition by sending immigrants to Guantanamo. Guantanamo has been the site of torture and indefinite detention without charge or trial. It is a law-free zone outside the U.S.’s legal protections. What could go wrong? The script writes itself.

Stephen Miller, a Jewish person, is the architect of Trump’s mass deportation/concentration camp scheme. One biographer titled his book on Miller “Hatemonger.”

There is a Yiddish word, shanda, which perfectly describes Miller. The word means “shame,” “terrible embarrassment” and “disgrace.”

As a kid, I remember these words on the wall of my temple: “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” It should be clear that mass deportations and concentration camps have nothing to do with justice. They are the opposite.