Some 100 leaders in the field of international refugee work convened here today at the opening session of a three-day conference marking the 80th anniversary of the United Hias Service. Among those taking part in the conference devoted to a re-evaluation of resettlement needs by the intergovernmental and private agencies working in this field were representatives of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, the United States Escape Program, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Joint Distribution Committee and the World Ort Union.
Commending the “outstanding record of service” of the United Hias Service and the “vigor and zest with which it continues to pursue its vocation,” Felix Schnyder, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said that the “voluntary agencies, Hias in particular, have played a vital part in enlisting the sympathies of countries of immigration in Europe, the Americas, Australia, and other areas so that little by little the refugees in these forgotten pockets are being helped to leave these areas.”
James P. Rice, executive director of the United Hias Service, said that Hias, the world’s oldest migration agency, in its 80 years of operation, has helped find new homes for 3,000,000 Jews, of whom the largest number have been resettled in the United States.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
