About Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in 1881 to assist Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, HIAS has touched the life of nearly every Jewish family in America and now welcomes all who have fled persecution.
From our beginnings in a storefront on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a group of American Jews organized to provide much-needed comfort and aid to thousands of Jews fleeing waves of anti-Semitic riots. While those who arrived were refugees – people who were being killed in their homelands because of who they were – the world did not yet have a legal concept for people who needed safe refuge outside their homelands.
In New York City, the once tiny Russian Jewish population swelled by the thousands. They formed the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to provide meals, transportation and jobs for the new arrivals to Manhattan.