Spotlight on CLAL Archive

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CLAL-HIAS Summit on Plight of Refugees --
Explores Jewish Role in Solving a Global Problem

By Andrew Silow-Carroll, Communications Director

Government officials and community volunteers and professionals on the front-lines of immigration and resettlement issues gathered for a summit meeting on the world refugee crisis co-sponsored by CLAL and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

The summit, "World Refugees: An American Jewish Conversation," was held October 24-25 in New York City. It took place as HIAS begins to consider its evolving role now that, even as Jews continue to emigrate from the former Soviet Union and other countries, the numbers are declining.

Rabbi Irwin Kula, President of CLAL, and Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, CLAL's Director of Organizational Development, led participants through conversations on whether Jewish resettlement services and advocacy should extend only to the needs of Jewish refugees, or those of non-Jews as well.

"Having faced the challenge of one set of refugee issues, what are we going to do with the vast storehouse of resources-in money, time, political capital, expertise and experience-in order to address other refugee issues?" asked Rabbi Blanchard. "Of course we have a responsibility as Jews to look after our own communities-whether in times of crisis or scarcity, when survival is at stake, or in more prosperous times, when we have to support the institutions without which our communities would unravel. But now that North American Jews are living with unprecedented power, affluence and security, we have a new question: What kind of world do we want to build?"

"There is a false dichotomy between behaviors that are deemed 'universal vs. particular,' or 'American vs. Jewish,' " said Rabbi Kula. "The vulnerability of 14 million refugees around the world is fundamentally a human issue. A Judaism that is truly big needs to provoke a confluence of the spiritual and ethical impulses that command our involvement in global human issues, and the Jewish language and behavior that gives expression to those values."

The program included addresses by Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor; Sen. Spencer Abraham (D-Mich.), who was honored by HIAS for his work on resettlement issues; the Honorable Morton Abramowitz, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Thailand; and representatives of the National Immigration Forum, United Jewish Communities, World Refugee Council, the American Jewish Committee, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Representatives of local Jewish community resettlement projects described current immigration challenges.

The summit culminated more than six months of consulting and collaboration between HIAS and CLAL. "The meeting was a model of how CLAL can help Jewish institutions address the challenges of the 21st century," said Donna M. Rosenthal, CLAL's Executive Vice Chairman.

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