Tagged Soviet Jews

With few Jews left to save, immigrant aid group HIAS searches for relevance

Reflecting its new motto, "Protect the Refugee," HIAS is helping refugees in Chad. (Courtesy HIAS)

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (JTA) — The new HIAS is not your grandmother’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and it’s certainly not the one that brought her mother over from the Pale of Settlement. After decades as the Jewish community’s foremost voice on immigration — first in leading the resettlement of Jews… Read more »

Lautenberg Amendment, Soviet-era law now helping Iranians, gets lifeline

The Lautenberg Amendment paved the way for these Iranian Jews shown arriving at Kennedy Airport in New York in 1995 to come to the United States. (Courtesy HIAS)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – When the Lautenberg Amendment was introduced in 1990, it provided a mechanism for hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to exit their crumbling country and immigrate to freedom in the United States. Since 2004, it has served as a lifeline for religious minorities fleeing the Islamic… Read more »

Op-Ed: Ultranationalists have no place in Russian protest movement

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A spate of recent media reports has discussed the inclusion of ultranationalists in the Russian protest movement. Jewish organizations, sensitive to the fragility of a newly emergent Russian civil society and Jewish community, need to speak out against this inclusion. Ultranationalism and xenophobia are not unique… Read more »