Educational Resources

Whether through Jewish sources, holiday celebrations, or generally building your understanding of refugee issues, we hope you find these resources meaningful and useful.

Resources for Jewish Holidays

The High Holidays

Every High Holiday season, join HIAS in working to create a more just world in which refugees and asylum seekers can rebuild their lives in safety and with dignity. Through our shared values of welcome, justice, empathy, partnership, courage, and resilience, we welcome the stranger and protect the refugee.

Resources for the High Holidays

Sukkot

Each year, we recreate the huts in which our Israelite ancestors found refuge after escaping slavery in Egypt and wandering in the desert for 40 years. Sukkot allows us time to recognize our own fragility and reminds us that, for so many, shelter remains impermanent.

Resources for Sukkot

Passover

On this holiday when we remember the Jewish people’s journey to freedom, we know that our freedom is inextricable from those of all others fleeing from violence and toward safety. The HIAS Haggadah is full of readings and stories which connect the foundational liberation story of the Jewish people with the reality of the refugee experience in the 21st century.

Resources for Passover

Calendar

Check all the important dates for your Jewish and refugee year, or download our calendar, so you have them all to hand.

Check or download our calendar

More Resources

Tisha B’Av Resource

Jun 26, 2023

This text study juxtaposes texts from Eicha (the Hebrew name for the book of Lamentations), with its graphic descriptions of a conquered Jerusalem, with stories and images from Kabul as it fell to the Taliban.

Download

Ruth, Naomi, and the Refugee Experience

May 10, 2023

The Book of Ruth tells the story of refugees. The first refugees we learn about are Naomi, Elimelech, and their sons, who flee Bethlehem during a time of famine. Their need is so great that they go to the land of Moab, the historical enemies of the Israelites. The family is forced by circumstance to migrate to a place of uncertain welcome and perhaps even mortal danger.

Learn about Ruth, Naomi, and the Refugee Experience

Refugee Torah

Nov 13, 2022

Readings from Jewish scriptures and wisdom sources that talk about how we should think about receiving guests and refugees.

Refugee Torah

“For you were strangers in the land of Egypt” Peoplehood Papers 19

Nov 13, 2022

Peoplehood Papers 19 sets out to explore the Jewish responsibility to refugees in the 21st century in the context of Jewish history, legacy and commitment to Torah and Jewish values. We very intentionally explored the issue through the eternal yet very present Jewish lens: "For you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

Peoplehood Papers 19: Our Responsibility to Refugees in the 21st Century

Rosie and Warda Children’s Book

Nov 13, 2022

This book, aimed at children in grades 1-3, seeks to highlight the important contributions and cultural differences that refugees bring to our communities as well as our responsibility to welcome them.

Rosie and Warda and the Big Tent