The Ground Beneath My Children’s Feet: Refugees and the Jewish Story

Home sweet home. Home is safety. Home is comfort. Home is familiar. What happens when you need to flee your home? It’s not just the stories of our grandparents that inform a Jewish sensibility about how to treat the refugees and immigrants–our texts and laws have an opinion, too.

 

Melanie Nezer is Senior Vice President for Public Affairs at HIAS, the global Jewish organization for refugees. Melanie also has served as HIAS' Vice President, Policy and Advocacy and, previously, as Migration Policy Counsel and Director of the Employment Visa Program, representing at-risk Jewish professionals and religious workers seeking to work in the U.S. during times of instability and crisis in their home countries She has spent her career as an attorney and advocate representing people who are seeking a chance at a productive future for themselves and their children, in a place where they can be safe and free. Melanie obtained her law degree from Boston College Law School and her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

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