Sukkot begins Sunday evening, October 16, and HIAS has created visual resources readers can print and hang in their sukkahs to acknowledge that today, 65 million refugees and displaced people still wander the earth in search of a safe place to call home.
Sukkot allows us time to recognize our own fragility and reminds us that, for so many, shelter remains impermanent.
This Sukkot, HIAS is making it possible for people to invite five refugees into their sukkahs to tell their stories by printing and hanging their photos and accompanying narratives. People will meet Rawan, a 4-year-old who fled Syria three years ago; Nicia, who fled war and sexual assault in Congo at age 14; a woman with an unknown name who only remembers leaving Darfur, Sudan, before war broke out on a Tuesday; Carlos, who fled violence in Colombia in 2009 and has struggled to make his restaurant business successful in Ecuador ever since; and Kamal, whose father was targeted by the Taliban in Afghanistan, endangering the entire family, which then passed through five intermediate countries over 17 years before finally making it to safety in the United States.
HIAS is encouraging those who utilize these stories to take photos in their sukkahs alongside the posters, and post them online using the hashtag #JewsforRefugees, to share the message: “This Sukkot, we stand with refugees.”
