After Pittsburgh Shooting, Jewish Congregations Vow To Keep Helping Refugees

Temple Rodef Shalom in Falls Church, Va., is one of many Jewish congregations across the country that have been helping to resettle refugees in America.

Three years ago, its members agreed to sponsor a Muslim refugee — a single mother named Tilko who fled Iraq with her children and who was originally brought to this country by a Christian charity.

Tilko asked not to be identified by her full name because she fears for her safety.

The petite, soft-spoken woman said that, back in Iraq, people didn't talk much about Jews. "But whatever little I heard was all negative," she says, sitting on a sofa in the living room of a congregation member recently, recalling the sorts of things people in her native country would say about Jews: "They are bad. They're mean. They are not helpful."

So when she arrived in this country and met the Jews who had volunteered to help her begin a new life, it erased all of her preconceptions.

"I was just taken aback," Tilko says. "For a second, like wow! The way they greeted me with the love and the respect, the way they just embraced me."