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The Republican state representative from Reynolds County wrote a letter to Gov. Mike Parson this week asking him to ban the resettlement in ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ of Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Never mind that there is no such resettlement proposed yet. Dinkins is running for the state Senate, which means she has to earn her Republican bona fides by hating people different than her more than her opponents do.

She is off to a good start.

Dinkins is following the example of Republicans in St. Charles County who tried — and failed — to pass a resolution opposing Hispanic immigrants coming to St. Louis. She’s also repeating history that is as old as the Holocaust.

Here’s where the voyage of the St. Louis comes in.

On May 15, 1939, the St. Louis, a transatlantic ship, left Hamburg, Germany, and headed for Cuba. It was carrying 937 people, most of them Jews trying to escape Hitler and the Nazis.

Cuba turned the ship away, so it headed to Florida. The Jews aboard, trying to save their lives, appealed to both Canada and the United States to accept them as refugees.

Both countries said no. There was no room at the inn.

I first learned of the ship’s history a few years back, on a visit to the in Washington, D.C. As museums and memorials go, this place is as powerful as they get. My kids tend to give me a hard time about museums because I stop to read all the placards. This one — about the voyage of the St. Louis — blew us all away. As the Holocaust was beginning, America said no to saving the lives of 937 Jewish refugees.

The ship headed back to Europe, where the Jews disembarked and sought refuge where they could — in Britain, France, Belgium or any country that would take them, including Palestine. World War II hadn’t started in earnest yet, but soon it would, and 254 of the Jews who were on the St. Louis died in the Holocaust.

It’s a chilling history, and it took the U.S. more than 60 years before it apologized for turning those refugees away during their time of need. The apology came in 2012, when William J. Burns, then the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, offered :

“We who did not live it can never understand the experience of those 937 Jews who boarded the M.S. Saint Louis in the spring of 1939. Behind them, shattered windows and lives, loved ones in danger, crimes already underway and those crimes to come. Ahead, the hope of a new life in this country,� Burns said in a speech at the nation’s capital. “In the spring of 1939, the dangers were visible to those clear-eyed enough to see them. The warnings were already clear for those who cared to listen … And yet the United States did not welcome these tired, poor and huddled passengers as we had so many before and would so many since. Our government did not live up to its ideals. We were wrong.�

Failing to learn from history, Dinkins wants to dip her toes into foreign policy and turn away refugees before they’ve even boarded a ship, saying they don’t share the “values of our state.� She also argued that she didn’t trust the President Biden administration to vet refugees from Gaza and avoid bringing “a terrorist threat to American soil.�

Stoking fear about people who are different than you might make for good Republican primary politics, but it’s not an American value. At least it’s not one that most of us are proud of, even if our nation’s history sometimes betrays our best angels.

On the day that Dinkins posted her letter to social media platforms, Jay Greenberg, the lead FBI agent in the St. Louis region, participated in a panel discussion at Kol Rinah synagogue in Clayton. It was part of a Department of Justice initiative called in which federal officials are working to combat rising antisemitism and Islamophobia since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel. Greenberg and other officials had a similar meeting recently with Muslim leaders in St. Louis.

The message in both meetings was the same: Don’t be afraid. Stoking fear is what the terrorists want, Greenberg said, adding a message that should be heeded by Dinkins and anybody who agrees with her: “Don’t let the terrorists win.�