Join HIAS President and CEO, Mark Hetfield, to learn more about the global refugee crisis and to explore how Jewish values, texts and history call on us to respond – both here in the U.S. and internationally. On Wednesday evening at 7:00pm, join Mr. Hetfield to learn more about the current refugee crisis and to explore how Jewish values and history call on us to respond.

Today, we are in the midst of the largest global refugee crisis in recorded history. Guided by Jewish values and history, HIAS works around the world to protect those refugees who have been forced to flee their homelands because of who they are, including ethnic, religious and sexual minorities.

Mark Hetfield, President and CEO, HIAS

Mark Hetfield is President and CEO of HIAS, which, founded in 1881 as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, is the world's oldest organization dedicated to refugees. 

Mark has led the transformation of the organization from one focused on Jewish immigrants to a global agency guided by Jewish values that assists and resettles refugees of all faiths and ethnicities and is a major implementing partner of the United Nations Refugee Agency and the U.S. Department of State.  

In November 2016, the Forward, the leading national Jewish weekly in the United States, named Mark to its Forward 50, the list of Jews who have “impacted American life” in 2016. 

In February 2017, under Mark’s leadership, HIAS became the first and only national refugee resettlement agency to file a court challenge against the Trump Administration and its Executive Order implementing a Muslim and refugee ban, a challenge which led to an injunction against the order and is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Co-sponsored by Compassionate Atlanta