How Hanukkah Happened for HIAS (in D.C.) Dec 10, 2018 Last week the HIAS D.C.-based Community Engagement team participated in a number of events celebrating the holiday of Hanukkah. On Wednesday, December 5, HIAS joined EntryPointDC and other community partners for a 20s and 30s Hanukkah Happy Hour to celebrate the fourth night of Hanukkah. […]
Rosie and Warda and the Big Tent, a refugee-themed children’s book, is a story about the importance of acknowledging and honoring cultural differences while understanding that we also all share much more in common than we may initially realize.
The symbolic shelter was intended to send a timely and distinctly Jewish message in response to a slew of anti-immigrant policies proposed over the past several months.
Against the backdrop of Passover’s imperative to free ourselves and others from narrow places, we remember the six million Jews and millions of LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who perished in the Holocaust.
Nationwide, Seders included today’s refugees in their retelling of the Exodus story. In addition to using the materials and rituals suggested by HIAS, many synagogues took it one step further, and invited refugees in their area to share in the festivities.
In an op-ed published on Scribe, the Forward’s curated contributor network, Rabbi Rachel Grant Meyer challenges the community “to commit to have at least one conversation with a family member, co-worker or friend on behalf of today’s refugees.”
As part of the ongoing Jewish response to the global refugee crisis, HIAS created new visual resources for congregations and families to print and hang in their sukkahs. The visuals provided an educational component to the familiar sukkot tradition, a reminder that today, 65 million refugees and displaced people still wander the earth in search of a safe place to call home.