Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels of the Beth Shir Shalom synagogue in Santa Monica, California, told his congregation during a Rosh Hashanah sermon on Monday that he does not condone former student Stephen Miller's "negativity, violence, malice, and brutality" toward immigrants.
Miller is President Trump's senior adviser for policy and one of the chief architects of his travel ban and directive to separate migrant children from their parents. Beth Shir Shalom is a progressive reform synagogue that Miller attended while growing up in Santa Monica, and Comess-Daniels said that he's been asked by other rabbis why Miller turned out the way he did. "I can assure you, as I can assure them, that what I taught is a Judaism that cherishes wisdom, values ... wide horizons and an even wider embrace," he said.
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