It’s difficult to put ourselves in the shoes of my Zaide’s (grandfather’s) generation. Their lives were uncertain, preoccupied with the issue of migration. For one central feature characterized the lives of so many Jews before World War II: dislocation, and the attendant  struggles to leave Europe and redefine themselves in a new land. Having experienced the upheavals of pogroms, political revolutions, privations brought about by the First World War, and growing nationalism and anti-Semitism, millions of Eastern European Jews concluded they no longer wanted to stay where they were living. They wanted to get out and go, in many cases, anywhere else.

Their lives were so different than Jews in my generation, the children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren of those immigrants. There are roughly 15 million Jews in the world today, and most of us are fairly well settled. We don’t immigrate much anymore. About 5.7 million Jews live in the United States, and no matter how we might feel about the state of our country, the vast majority of us have no intention of leaving it. A few thousand move to Israel each year, but almost everyone else is staying put. The same can be said for most of Israel’s approximately 6.6 million Jews. A few–about 10,000-20,000– Israeli Jews leave from or return to Israel each year. About 30,000 Jews made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) in 2018–mostly Jews from the former Soviet Union and Western Europe–a small percentage of the roughly 8.5 million Jews living outside of Israel.

In contrast, more than two and a half million Jews (as well as millions of other ethnicities) left Eastern Europe after 1881 , one of the largest migrations in human history. Most came to the United States, with substantial numbers also migrating to Western European countries–Germany, France and England–as well as to Central and South America, and, of course, Palestine. After World War II, hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors formed the next wave of immigration. This was followed by the mass migrations of nearly 800,000 Jews of Arab lands after 1948, about two-thirds of whom made their home in the new state of Israel. Finally, from 1989 to 2006, about 1.6 million Jews and their families emigrated from the former Soviet Union, mostly to Israel, but also to the United States and Germany.

In researching my family history, the name of one organization kept popping up. And it was not any of the Jewish organizations–the many, many, Jewish organizations–that contemporary Jews have heard about, or, perhaps, contributed to.  It was not the Federation. Or the Anti-Defamation League. The American Jewish Congress. The American Jewish Committee. The World Jewish Congress. JCRC. Hadassah. Hillel. Or any other cultural or religious organization. It was: HIAS.

As my uncle recently told me, HIAS was literally a “byword” among immigrant families. Articles about its work were a staple of the Yiddish press. (The Jews of my grandfather’s generation pronounced it HI-YAS, with the emphasis on the last syllable.) And so I set out to find out more about HIAS, and here is some of what I learned.

HIAS stands for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. It was founded in 1881, the year that marked the beginning of mass emigration from Eastern Europe following the pogroms associated with the assassination of Czar Alexander II. Of course, Jews being Jews, one immigrant aid society was not enough, and so another one, the Hebrew Sheltering House Association, was founded soon thereafter. Smarter heads prevailed, and the two merged in 1909 to become the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, yet retaining the HIAS acronym. Its stated goal was “to facilitate the lawful entry of Jewish immigrants into the various ports of the United States; to provide those in need with temporary shelter, food, clothing,” and to assist in the processes of acculturation and naturalization.

The range of services HIAS provided was simply amazing. It was pretty much a one-stop organization that offered everything a newly arrived immigrant could hope for. HIAS had a representative stationed at each major port of entry, including of course Ellis Island, to meet passengers as they disembarked. The time between leaving the ship and the terminal was often the most anxiety-filled period for any immigrant. While most were “processed” without much delay, some were detained and subject to deportation and return to their country of origin, either because they failed a health inspection or were unable to demonstrate economic support and thus, in the words of the relevant law, “likely to be a public charge.” HIAS representatives were on hand to intercede on behalf of these immigrants and appeal any such adverse decisions. HIAS would care for those detained at Ellis Island. In 1911, HIAS set up a  kosher kitchen that, between 1925 and 1952, fed more than half a million meals. Ellis Island also had a synagogue supported by HIAS that operated every day, even on the High Holidays. Seders were held on Passover, attended by communal leaders. (Wischnitzer, Visas to Freedom: The History of HIAS, 67).

The HIAS building in the Lower East Side was often the immigrant’s first destination upon leaving Ellis Island. Many lived at HIAS before finding more permanent housing. (Thus, the idea of a “sheltering” society.)

The HIAS building featured two kosher kitchens (one for fleshig, meat, and the other for milchig, dairy) and a large dining room for meals. According to the agency’s advertising at the time, “No line is drawn between race, color and creed, and [meals] are given to the recipient and meals are given to the recipient in such a way as not to wound his feelings.” There were also separate dormitories for men and women, a synagogue, and a playground for children.

Even after finding a place to live, the new immigrants would return to HIAS for a variety of other services, such as help in finding a job, classes to learn English as well as assistance in applying for naturalization.

Before applying for citizenship, immigrants had to prove that they had lived in the United States for five years. HIAS aided them by creating a system to keep track of the immigrants who had entered the country. Shortly upon arriving in the United States, the immigrants would go to the HIAS office to fill out a registration card.

If an immigrant left New York, he or she could go to HIAS an inform them of their new destination. Often HIAS was able to help them buy discount tickets to their destination. Their names were then forwarded to HIAS representatives at those locations who could help them in finding employment and housing. In 1940, Congress passed a law that required all non citizens living in the United States to register as an “alien.” Again, HIAS was on hand to help with the paperwork.

Here are some startling statistics: from 1909 to 1918, “HIAS handled 28,884 potential deportation cases (winning admission for 22,760 of these), placed 12, 145 workers in jobs, sheltered 32,202 immigrants and ‘wayfarers’ in its dormitory, assisted 64,298 immigrants to acquire naturalization papers, helped 84,023 people reach destinations outside of New York, and gave advice to 750,000 information seekers. In addition, HIAS sponsored 188 lectures in its building and conducted 337 English and citizenship classes” (Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880-1939, 140).

Indeed, if it were not for HIAS, I might not even be here. The history of my family–indeed the existence of my family–might have looked a lot different but not for HIAS. My maternal grandfather, my Zaide, arrived in the United States from Palestine on March 30, 1927. (Click here to read that story.) Less than two years before that, he had married my grandmother, and at the time he arrived at the port in Providence, Rhode Island, she was expecting their first child. He had two priorities: to make a living and to reunite with his wife and newborn daughter. With the assistance of his wife’s brother, who had previously immigrated to the U.S., he was able to work as a peddler on the Lower East Side. But how was he, as a non-citizen of the U.S. (and perhaps even in this country illegally), going to get his wife and newborn daughter to the United States?

To complicate matters, in the Johnson-Reed Act, passed in 1924, Congress imposed restrictive immigration laws that established immigration quotas based on national origin. These quotas were specifically targeted to limit immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. For example, the quotas reduced the eligible number of Polish immigrants from 30,977 to 5,982, Russian immigrants from 24,405 to 2,148, the Rumanians from 7,419 to 603. The quota for Palestinian citizens, such as my grandmother and her daughter, was limited to a mere 100 persons per year. The law had a dramatic overall effect: in 1926, only 11,483 Jews were allowed to do immigrate to the U.S. (Wischnitzer, 131).

My grandfather went to HIAS for help in reuniting his family. He must have spent hours at their office. HIAS specialized in tough cases such as this. For example, HIAS had come to the rescue of Jews who were stranded after the Johnson-Reed law went into effect on July 1, 1924. Over 8000 people had obtained visas and bought tickets for passage to the U.S., in many cases selling all their assets to do so. They found themselves stranded at various European ports when American officials told them that 1924’s annual quota had already been filled prior to the passage of the law. Many of these people were not even in their home country, and so faced the real possibility of not only being made to wait a year or more to seek entry to the U.S., but also deportation back to their home country. Flooded with pleas for help, HIAS created an evacuation committee that aided many of them to get to the U.S. or other destinations such as Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Palestine (Wischnitzer, 112-113).

I don’t know how they did it, but somehow HIAS was able to arrange passage for my grandmother and aunt. After spending hours of genealogical research into immigration records to figure out how and when my grandmother and aunt got to the U.S., I came across these two records:

Perhaps they were two of the 100 persons allowed from Palestine to enter the U.S. in 1928. Perhaps HIAS was able to show that they were coming in outside the quota system under family reunification. I will never know. But I can presume that HIAS’s help was instrumental in their reunification. My aunt was born over a year later, and, in 1932, my mother.

Another family story: Isaac Niemark, my great uncle through marriage, came from a village not far from Zambrow, my grandfather’s home town. When he become an American citizen, he, as was common with many Jewish immigrants, changed his last name. When he wanted to marry, he went back to Poland and married my grandfather’s younger sister, Chaya Sara (Adele). When he got back to America, he went to HIAS to arrange to bring his newlywed to the U.S. This wasn’t his first time at HIAS; he stayed there when he first arrived in America in the mid 1920s. As he said when I interviewed him many years ago, “Any European man who came off the boat went to HIAS.” His problem now was that his passport still had his old name, Niemark, yet he had registered his marriage under his new last name, Rubinson. Once again, with the help of HIAS (and possibly a bribe to a well-connected official), he was able to get his new wife to America.

HIAS not only helped immigrants once they arrived on these shores, but also played a critical role before immigrants even stepped onto a ship bound for the Americas.

After World War I, HIAS set up agencies though out Europe, including, in 1920, Warsaw. HIAS served as the link between the Jews of Europe and the Jews in America. Americans would send telegrams to their relatives in Europe; in 1921 alone, HIAS offices received almost 25,000 cables (Wischnitzer, 99).

Immigrants were an especially vulnerable population. They were at the mercy of the shipping companies, smugglers, and a myriad of scammers who preyed upon desperate people. People getting ready to immigrate often carried large sums of cash after selling their possessions to buy transit tickets as well as pay for lodging pending their ship’s departure. They were at a high risk for being robbed and victimized in scams. My great uncle Isaac told me that as soon as he got to Warsaw, someone beat him up and stole all his money. HIAS placed notices in Yiddish newspapers warning people of these dangers.

HIAS also set up its own bank with branches in various European cities. Called the HIAS Immigrant Bank, it opened its doors in 1923 and was limited to a single, but essential service: the transfer of money from relatives in America to people living abroad. More than $16 million dollars were transmitted to needy European Jews through the HIAS bank.

HIAS  published its own Yiddish newspaper that warned people about various scams, including the most notorious one: the luring of single women with the promise of free passage to and employment in various New World countries who were then forced into prostitution. This so-called “White Slavery” was widespread. Many of the unfortunate women were Jewish as were the prostitution rings that enslaved them. A report in 1910 found that Buenos Aires itself was home to 42 houses of prostitution, 39 of which were run by Russian Jews. The most infamous one was called Tzwi Migdal, named after its infamous founder, had offices in Poland, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, India, China and the U.S. At its peak in the 1920s, it controlled 2,000 brothels with 4,000 women in Argentina alone.

HIAS also worked to improve the conditions immigrants endured on their trans-Atlantic journeys. Most immigrants, unable to afford a cabin,  had to travel steerage. Hundreds of people were crammed together over the course of a week and a half journey, living and sleeping in a large “hold” on the lowest level on the ship.

HIAS also arranged with the shipping companies to serve kosher food. This was especially important because if people did not eat enough during the voyage (to the extent they could stomach any food), they might appear sickly to immigration officials and risk being rejected on health grounds.

After the immigration quota laws were enacted, HIAS turned its attention to helping Eastern European Jews immigrate to other destinations, especially Latin America. My great uncle, Shmulke, who immigrated from Poland to Cuba in the late 1920s, mostly likely got the help, and perhaps even the idea to immigrate there, from HIAS. (Click here to read about his story)

In 1921, HIAS set out to document the role it played in the lives of would-be immigrants. It hired a well-known Jewish Polish poet and photographer, Alter Kacyzne, to photograph its efforts in Warsaw. He took over 100 photographs whose matter of factness belie their dramatic nature. (Some of them are reproduced here with the permission of the YIVO Institute in New York.)

One of them shows a long line of people on a cold Polish winter day outside the HIAS office in Warsaw waiting to get in for assistance.

Others came to the HIAS to check out its bulletin board in the main courtyard where presumably was posted updates about immigration procedures or notices from relatives in America.

Once they got into the building, they waited their turn to be helped with obtaining and processing their visa applications and received any messages sent from their relatives abroad.

Once they were called, HIAS officials helped them with their immigration papers.

Even after they had the proper documents in hand, some of them had to wait until their scheduled departure date, and lived at HIAS until then.

Finally, when the time came, they left Warsaw for the port of Gdansk where they would board a ship to take them to their destination.

How did HIAS get the money to do all this? At its inception, the main source of funds came from wealthy German Jews who had immigrated to the U.S. from 1840 to 1870. One of them, Jacob Schiff, who also helped found the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, contributed $10,000 (over $300,000 in today’s terms). HIAS also had fundraising campaigns which drew support from across the spectrum of Jewish groups, including many landsmanschaft organizations (mutual aid societies). It held membership drives, and, by the mid-1920s, its membership was over 150,000. Because it dealt with the issues of immigration around which the Jewish community was united, HIAS was one organization which Jews of all political and religious allegiances could support (Soyer, p. 138).

HIAS still exists today, though it is no longer at its Lower East Side location. A plaque marks its former location on Lafayette Street.

Despite the “H” for Hebrew in its name, its work no longer focuses on Jews. It doesn’t have to. Jews are not fleeing their native countries anymore.

But millions of other people are. Indeed, never in human history have there been more displaced persons (over 70 million) and refugees (over 30 million). HIAS still provides a range of services to help these desperate people. The faces have changed, the needs remain the same.