As the house light dimmed in the Joseph Papp Public Theater, a young woman slowly walked over to the American flag and began singing “America the Beautiful.”
Soon after, a young boy carrying another American flag, followed by two girls holding red, white and blue balloons, led a procession of 49 immigrants, including nine refugees from the former Soviet Union, onto the stage, where they took the oath to become new U.S. citizens.
The event, which took place Monday during the annual meeting of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, was the first time the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service held a swearing-in ceremony in conjunction with HIAS.
“The days you become citizens has been heightened by HIAS,” Richard Berryman, assistant district director of adjudications at the INS New York District, said he as he addressed the immigrants.
Some of the new citizens, a mix of Jews and non-Jews from several countries, had waited almost 20 years for this moment.
Vladimir Belfer, 70, and his wife, Anna, 69, had followed their children to the United States 17 years ago, fearing the persecution and anti-Semitism they constantly felt in the former Soviet Union.
The Belfers said they waited so many years to become citizens because they wanted to achieve a comfortable level of English before taking the citizenship exam. Today “we are absolutely overwhelmed with feelings. We almost want to cry,” he said.
The Public Theater, located in New York’s Greenwich Village, was the HIAS building between 1921 and 1965. At that time, refugees were processed, housed and fed there.
Currently, the United States allows 700,000 immigrants, including 90,000 refugees, to enter the country every year.
Pending legislation, however, would reduce those figures to 500,000 immigrants and 50,000 refugees.
There are “20 million men, women and children who are labeled refugees, and we, the haven for the refugees,” are attempting “to cut back,” Norman Tilles, president of HIAS, said to the audience.
“The need for an open door in a country where everyone has come from somewhere, from persecution, that need has to be fulfilled,” said Frank Field, the veteran New York City television weatherman, who also addressed the ceremony.
Watching the 49 immigrants become citizens was a sign of triumph for Rachel Zelon, director of refugee and immigrant services at HIAS.
“We assist people to come into the country” she said. Citizenship means “we have succeeded.”
For Vitaly Koretsky, 38, who came to the United States six years ago from the former Soviet Union, becoming an American citizen means a better life for his daughter, now 11, and for himself.
He graduated in 1993 from the Borough of Manhattan Community College as a respiratory therapist. But he is not ready to stop studying yet.
“I can get a bachelor’s degree or study further to be a physician or a physician’s assistant,” he said with a smile.
“I take my country for granted,” said Berryman of the INS. “But when I see people who [become citizens] by choice, it renews me.” With every new citizen, he said, “our country becomes a little bit stronger, a little bit richer, a little bit better.”
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.
