Roberta Elliott sorts shoes donated for refugees in Vienna in October 2015.
Roberta Elliott’s exploration of what it means to be a refugee started when she had her bat mitzvah at the age of 60. But it really started long before that. She helps refugees because she grew up with refugees in her own family. For many years she has been… Read more »
Activist Michele Freed, center, and other young professionals protest with HIAS in front of the White House, March 1, 2017. (Katie Jett Walls)
NEW YORK (JTA) — On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump made Mark Hetfield’s job impossible. Hetfield is the president and CEO of HIAS, an organization that resettles refugees in the United States. A week into his presidency, Trump issued an executive order barring refugees from entering the country, leaving… Read more »
A new exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum allows visitors to video chat with refugees. (Courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – He’d rather talk to young women than answer my insistent line of questioning. He speaks in terms that make me feel like a Luddite, and when I bring up stuff he’d rather not talk about, out comes the smartphone. Omar, a Syrian refugee passing time… Read more »
Syrians fleeing violence in Aleppo arrive in the city's Fardos neighborhood after government troops retook the area from rebel fighters, Dec. 13, 2016. (Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Although Poopa Dweck has never been to Aleppo, her New Jersey home evokes the smells of a kitchen in the now-ravaged Syrian city. Dweck was born after her parents left the once-bustling metropolis in 1947, but she still calls it her “homeland.” She has dedicated herself… Read more »
Actress Milana Vayntrub, the "AT&T Girl," volunteering with Syrian refugees in Lesbos, Greece. (Courtesy of Vayntrub/Can't Do Nothing)
(JTA) — You know Lily. You do. She’s that chipper, slyly witty girl who works at the AT&T store — not a real one, but the one you see in those ubiquitous TV ads. What you may not know is that the actress who plays her, Milana Vayntrub, is… Read more »
(Kveller via JTA) — When I was growing up, my father’s parents lived half a world away in Israel. I only met them a handful of times. Back then there was no Internet, so we sent letters and made the occasional phone call. Once, when I was 12 or… Read more »
Migrants wait to be processed at the increasingly overwhelmed Moria camp on the island of Lesbos in Greece, Oct. 21, 2015. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – American Jewish organizations don’t see the Syrian refugees as a threat; they see them as a reminder. With rare unanimity on an issue that has stirred partisan passion, a cross-section of the community has defended the Obama administration’s refugee policy in terms recalling the plight of Jews fleeing… Read more »
Roberta Elliott, a Tucson winter resident volunteering to help refugees in Vienna, Austria, last month, sorts through piles of donated shoes. (Courtesy Roberta Elliott)
The U.S. Passport Control agent greeted me with uncustomary warmth as I returned to Newark Liberty Airport on Nov. 2. “Was your trip business or vacation?” he asked. For a split second I hesitated, but answered firmly “vacation.” How could I tell him that the time I had just… Read more »
Refugee children visit a fire station in Berlin, September 2015. (Judith Kessler)
BERLIN (JTA) — When supporters of the anti-immigrant PEGIDA movement and right-wing extremists in the former East Germany started demonstrating by the tens of thousands this year against foreigners and “American Zionist” policies, I got mad. When the first refugee homes in Germany were set on fire, I was shocked. When… Read more »
Migrants and refugees with temporary documents board a ferry to take them to Athens at the port of the Greek island of Kos on August 14, 2015. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)
ANAHEIM, Calif. (JTA) — Arab Americans advocating on behalf of Syrian refugees have found some unlikely allies in their effort to resettle families from the war-torn nation: influential Jewish groups. Over the last few days, HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, launched a petition drive calling on President… Read more »
Migrants cross into Hungary as they walk over railroad tracks at the Serbian border, Sept. 8. (Dan Kirkwood/Getty Images
Editor’s note: For the local response, see JFSA facilitates gift for Syrian refugee aid (JTA) — When he looks into the tired eyes of the Syrian refugees now flooding Europe’s borders, Guy Sorman is reminded of his father, Nathan, who fled Germany for France just months before Adolf Hitler… Read more »
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona recently received a $25,000 gift from a donor advised fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, which it forwarded to the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief to aid the swelling population of migrants and Syrian refugees in Europe and the Middle… Read more »
Syrian refugees in the Jordanian city of Mafraq collect supplies funded by IsraAid, an Israeli humanitarian aid organization, and distributed through a local Jordanian NGO. MAFRAQ, Jordan (JTA) — The purple plastic sacks fill two rooms in the otherwise sparsely furnished headquarters of a Jordanian NGO, awaiting distribution to Syrian refugees already lined up on the sidewalk. They contain an array of staple dry goods — lentils, pasta, powdered milk, tea — as well… Read more »
Syrian refugees living in camps and tens in northern Jordan are receiving aid from Jewish and Israeli groups. (Courtesy IsraAid) NEW YORK (JTA) — When Georgette Bennett decided a few months ago to help refugees from Syria’s civil war, she wanted to do it in a Jewish way. Citing a passage from Leviticus she said her late husband often quoted, “Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of… Read more »
