The best thing Americans can do to help Syrian refugees is not to send supplies or even cash, but to lobby the U.S. government to admit more of them into this country, Riva Silverman said last week at Stanford’s Ziff Center for Jewish Life.
“In 2015, the U.S. is committed to resettling 70,000 refugees [from all countries]. That number is less than half the number of refugees we resettled just 10 years ago, when the number of refugees worldwide was significantly less,” said Silverman, the HIAS vice president for external affairs.
Germany, she said, has offered to resettle 800,000 Syrian refugees in response to the crisis. HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, has called upon the United States to admit 100,000 Syrian refugees in addition to the refugee slots it has already allocated.
Silverman was at Hillel at Stanford on Oct. 14 as part of a speaking tour with her colleague, Winnie Gacheru, director of HIAS Kenya, in order to raise awareness about the refugee crisis and the Jewish agency’s work in aiding and resettling refugees. Ten local synagogues and Jewish agencies, including the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley, were among the dozen or so co-sponsors of the event, titled “Yearning to Breathe Free: The Jewish Response to Today’s Refugee Crisis.”
With 11 million people displaced, representing half the population of Syria, the Syrian civil war has created the most acute refugee crisis in the world today. At this point, one in five people living in Lebanon are Syrian refugees, Silverman said.
“Think about if that were your neighborhood,” she added.
But the problem is by no means limited to Syria. Due to wars, conflict and persecution, 22 million people have fled from Darfur, Eritrea, Ukraine, Colombia, Central America and other regions.
“The crisis we’re seeing is the worst the world has seen since the days of World War II,” Silverman said.
HIAS was founded in the 19th century to assist Jewish immigrants who showed up on American shores impoverished and to rescue Jews who in danger around the world. The agency helped resettle Jews fleeing Europe, Russia and the Middle East, with the final wave from the former Soviet Union ebbing by the end of the 20th century.
“HIAS could have easily stated ‘mission accomplished’ and closed up shop” when the flow of Jewish refugees ended, Silverman said. “Instead, we took our experience and turned our focus to the millions of today’s refugees who find themselves fleeing their persecutors.”
HIAS now has field operations in 10 countries and is one of nine agencies sanctioned to resettle immigrants in the United States. Abroad, HIAS helps people attain refugee status and makes sure they have the documentation they need to be eligible for social services, to send their children to school, to work and to move forward with their cases. HIAS also provides counseling and job training.
Less than 1 percent of the world’s refugees will be resettled in the United States or another country that offers refugee visas, Silverman said, because of a low number of available slots. Most refugees will end up staying in the countries they have fled to, as repatriation to their home country is often impossible. HIAS recommends only the most vulnerable refugees for resettlement to the United States.
Gacheru, who provides counseling to refugees in Kenya, said most of the refugees she serves, many from Somali-land, must overcome unspeakable trauma as they rebuild their lives.
“The last they remember is their homes were torched and they’re not there anymore, it’s just ashes,” Gacheru said. “Many of them remember family members being killed. Some of them remember horrible acts of torture.”
What’s striking is how normal most refugees’ lives were before crisis hit.
“Before flight, the refugees had homes. They lived much like you and me,” Gacheru said. “They looked forward to their future. They had goals and dreams for themselves and their children. They had a normal life, but a life now that is only in their memories.”
The global community must step up in order to provide humanitarian relief to refugees, Silverman said, much like Germany has in offering to open its doors to the 800,000 Syrian refugees.
“The most important thing for Americans to be doing now in this crisis is to make our government behave very differently,” Silverman said.