\u201cWhoever preserves a single soul, it is as though he had preserved a whole world.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> Twenty-two years ago, when the Aeroflot jumbo jet rumbled down a Moscow runway and took off bound for California, Lila Katz had only one thing on her mind: getting there \u2014 finally<\/em>.<\/p>\n Two days earlier, Katz and her family were in their seats on a different flight bound for the United States waiting to take off when a flight doctor for the American-owned airline intervened. Concerned that Katz\u2019s ailing mother-in-law would die in transit, the flight doctor had the family kicked off the aircraft.<\/p>\n Lila, her husband, Alex, their two teenage sons, and Alex\u2019s parents \u2014 watched helplessly as the airplane took off in the middle of the night without them, but with the dozen suitcases that a contained nearly all their earthly possessions.<\/p>\n Stranded in Moscow, more than 1,000 miles north of the home they\u2019d just left behind in Rostov-on-Don (near the border with Ukraine), they checked into a hotel. After three days of scrambling to sell whatever they could \u2014 including Lila\u2019s jewelry \u2014 they had scraped enough cash together to buy new plane tickets on the Russian-owned airline and once again, were on their way to a new life in a strange new world.<\/p>\n When they landed in San Francisco an ambulance was waiting for Katz\u2019s mother-in-law, who survived the 15-hour-flight, but just barely. She had terminal cancer, a diagnosis about which the Katzes were fully aware.<\/p>\n \u201cShe knew she was dying \u2014 she was a doctor, by the way,\u201d Lila Katz recalled on a recent drive from downtown Berkeley, Calif. to her office in nearby Walnut Creek. \u201cShe was afraid if she died in Russia, we would never had made it [to the States]. So she pulled herself through and brought us here.<\/p>\n \u201cShe saw America from an ambulance,\u201d Katz continued, more than a little wistfully. Within 10 days of arriving in San Francisco, Katz\u2019s mother-in-law was dead, and the family was trying to figure out how to take out a $7,000 loan to cover her funeral costs.<\/p>\n In Rostov-on-Don, Katz had been a pediatrician for 20 years and her husband was one of the leading gastroenterologists in the region. But as refugees in America, he found himself cleaning pools and working as a gardener, while she scrubbed floors and babysat in order to pay back the loan.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was stressful, very, very stressful,\u201d Katz said. \u201cBut we are happy here. Really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Lila Katz was born in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, in 1947, and reared in a family of doctors.<\/p>\n Her future was preordained: she, too, would become a physician. It was the family business.<\/p>\n But in order to attend medical school, Katz\u2019s parents sent her to the border city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia. At the time, Jews were not allowed to attend medical school in Ukraine. No such prohibition existed in Russia.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you ask my husband, he will tell you that my parents sent me to Rostov to meet him,\u201d Katz says, as a wide, easy smile spreads across her face. Lila and Alex Katz did meet in medical school and were soon married, set up successful practices, and had two sons, Lenny and Eugene.<\/p>\n Then on April 26, 1986, Reactor #4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded in the middle of the night. Lila\u2019s parents, who still lived outside of Kiev, fled and joined their daughter\u2019s family in Rostov.<\/p>\n In 1992, when Sam and Michael were 20 and 13, the Katzes received permission to immigrate to the U.S. under the auspices of the 1990 Lautenberg Amendment<\/a>, which granted refugee status to residents of the former Soviet Union. Later, Katz helped bring her parents and younger sister (also a physician) to settle in the Bay Area as well.<\/p>\n Among those who helped the Katzes acclimate to life in Walnut Creek, Calif. were volunteers from the \u00a0Jewish Family and Children\u2019s Services of the East Bay<\/a>. Founded in 1877 as the Daughters of Israel Relief Society \u2014 a volunteer effort focusing on Jewish elderly, widows, and orphans \u2014 JFCS-East Bay first became involved in resettlement efforts in 1934 when the first Jewish German refugees arrived in the San Francisco area.<\/p>\n \u00a0JFCS-East Bay\u00a0also was instrumental in helping resettle large numbers of Soviet Jews who fled prevailing anti-Semitism in the former U.S.S.R. in the 1980s.<\/p>\n \u201cI started to volunteer [she still pronounces it \u201cwahl-un-teer\u201d in a precisely enunciated, but still-thick accent] very soon after arrival,\u201d Lila Katz said. \u201cBoth me and my husband. There were a lot of Russians coming at that time and what we did was take them for medical appointments. We helped with medical translation.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went to school for English, but to communicate on a medical topic was easy for us,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes we just explained to people the circumstances of the problem. Even if we couldn\u2019t translate word-for-word, we could help everybody explain. So we were helping with that and then we helped with other stuff. We were very involved in volunteering and our children were as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Katz\u2019s husband got a job in a hospital as a medical assistant in a G.I. lab and quickly worked his way up to practicing medicine again. But Lila chose a different route, forgoing pediatrics as a medical doctor and instead becoming certified as a postpartum caregiver. She started her own business, Babes in Arms, helping new parents cope with difficult children.<\/p>\n All the while, Katz continued to volunteer at JFCS, helping new Russian refugees resettle in the East Bay. When the organization got its first grant to fund a refugees and immigrants program, Katz joined the staff in her first paid position, working as a health education and social adjustment counselor.<\/p>\n For many years at JFCS she concentrated almost exclusively on resettlement for refugees. And while the work remained the same, the clientele has changed decidedly, particularly in the last few years as an influx of refugees from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan began to arrive.<\/p>\n In 2004, the Lautenberg Amendment was expanded to include religious minorities fleeing persecution in Iran \u2014 Zoroastrians, Christians, Baha\u2019is, and even a few Jews. In the last year or two, many more refugees are arriving with \u201cspecial visas\u201d issued to Afghani and Iraqi nationals who worked for the U.S. government in their home countries, and most of them are Muslim.<\/p>\n According to Avi Rose, executive director of JFCS-East Bay, the organization has resettled more people in 2014 than it has in a decade. By the end of September, it had resettled 92 refugees. In a typical year, it might resettle 30.<\/p>\n \u201cWe projected 60 people to resettle this year and I just signed on for 95 in 2014 with a 10 percent increase on top of that, so it could be up to 100 people by the end of the year,\u201d said Amy Weiss, director of refugee and immigrant services for JFCS-East Bay. \u201cIt\u2019s not over. We\u2019ve got a lot of work to do. It\u2019s been difficult and fascinating. This group of refugees who are coming primarily from Aghanistan, some from Iraq \u2026 it\u2019s like the water faucet has been turned on.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re having to flee,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cThey are coming from circumstances where they had worked for the U.S. government and they had privilege there and they have to get up and leave with their families, so we have a lot of children that we\u2019re having to serve that we haven\u2019t served before.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0JFCS-East Bay\u00a0has social workers and psychologists on staff who are Muslim, speak Arabic and Farsi, and who were, like Katz, refugees themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the core Jewish values is to help people who need it,\u201d Katz said. \u201cSometimes people ask me, \u2018Why would you, a Jewish agency, resettle me? I\u2019m a Muslim from Iraq.\u2019 \u2026 As a Jewish agency that resettles a diverse population, I always try to address that.<\/p>\n She tells the story of a young Iraqi man she recently helped settle with his sister, who had been living in the Bay Area for some time. He was suspicious of the agency\u2019s motive for helping him, a Muslim.<\/p>\n Katz said she explained that his sister lived within the geographic area that JFCS serves, and that\u2019s the only reason why he was referred here. The brother and sister began speaking to each other in Arabic, and laughing.<\/p>\n It turns out the man thought that JFCS had somehow discovered that he and his sister have a Jewish ancestor (which, apparently, they do.)<\/p>\n \u201cSo we all laughed about that,\u201d Katz said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I always start with. Then in conversation, I have required topics I need to cover, but I try to do it in a nicer way and sometimes I interrupt with my own stories.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they ask something or express concerns, I\u2019ll say something like, \u2018I really feel for you and I know what you mean by that. I came the same way. I had kids like you have now. Yes it\u2019s a lot of work.\u2019 \u2026 I tell them, \u2018I\u2019m here to help. Your relatives are here to help. But you<\/em> are the one who has to do the job. I can\u2019t do it for you.\u2019 I try to give them a push in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most interesting clients Katz says she\u2019s worked with in the last few years is a refugee from Iraq who arrived with one of those special visas.<\/p>\n The woman had worked as a translator for the U.S. military for five years after the war started in 2003. After the war ended, like so many Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government, she began to receive threats. When her mother and brother were murdered in their car in 2011, she fled to Istanbul, Turkey, where she received that special refugee status because of her U.S. government affiliation. She arrived in the Bay Area in late 2012.<\/p>\n \u201cHer story is really something,<\/a>\u201d Katz begins. \u201cShe is not transgender, she is intersex,\u201d meaning she was born with both male and female genitalia.<\/p>\n \u201cShe identifies as female and she is a beautiful woman. For the second year now she is living with a transgender (female to male) rabbi and his female partner in San Francisco,\u201d Katz said. \u201cWe have amazing stories.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the more extraordinary stories have come from a very special group of refugees (and asylum seekers) that Katz helped introduce to JFCS after she attended a workshop about four years ago led by a lawyer from ORAM (Organization for Refuge, Asylum, and Migration).<\/a><\/p>\n Founded in 2008, ORAM is \u201cthe only international organization devoted solely to advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) refugees fleeing brutalization due to sexual orientation or gender identity.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, ORAM was working predominantly with LGBT refugees from Iran who had fled to Turkey. After his presentation, Katz recalls approaching the lawyer to say, \u201cYou know, this is something that is a really good fit for us \u2014 we\u2019re in the right place \u2014 and if anyone can do it, it\u2019s us.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2011\u00a0 JFCS-East Bay received its first LGBT refugee: a gay man from Central Africa who had endured extreme violence in his home country and had to flee for his life. (He continues to live in the U.S. but asked that his name and identifying details about his life not be printed for ongoing security concerns.)<\/p>\n An organization in Nairobi, Kenya that worked with LGBT refugees connected the man with a partner organization in New York that flagged his case for resettlement by JFCS-East Bay. The organization acted as his main sponsor in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cLila was behind all of that,\u201d the man said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n Volunteers from the LGBT community and JFCS met him at airport when he arrived in San Francisco, and a few days later, he visited the JFCS offices for the first time.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I got to the offices, Lila was there,\u201d he recalled. \u201cShe was loving and kind and had so much compassion for me. She showed me love.\u201d<\/p>\n For months, Lila helped this African refugee arrange appointments for medical care, career counseling, school, and helped him navigate a rabbit warren of bureaucratic red tape from applying for his Social Security card to making sure he had a subsidized bus pass. She visited him at his home in Oakland and, eventually, in the office where he found gainful (and meaningful) employment, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still in touch with Lila,\u201d the man said. \u201cShe\u2019s a very wonderful, compassionate and friendly person\u2026. She makes you feel like you have someone you can talk to. I had lost everything but she encouraged me. She told me, \u2018I was a refugee once, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, 78 nations worldwide criminalize same-sex relations; of those, seven may impose the death penalty for consensual same-sex conduct, according to ORAM.<\/a> In Uganda, for instance, where there has been capital punishment for homosexual activity in the past, homosexuality currently is considered a criminal act punishable by a 14-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n At a recent JFCS-East Bay staff meeting, Weiss, director of refugee and immigrant services, recounted the story of a recent LGBT refugee arrival that brought many staff members to tears.<\/p>\n \u201cOne person who I had the honor to pick up at the airport and witness his experience and his mind was blown,\u201d Weiss began. \u201cHe went from having nothing \u2014 nobody to help him, in fear for his life, 23 years old (my daughter\u2019s age) \u2014 having to flee barefoot, climb over a fence, escape prison, run for his life, police find him at his cousin\u2019s house, re-arrest him \u2026 the story is just incredible. Multiple times fleeing on foot with no money, no water. Being in a refugee camp. Being beat up by a group of Somali men in the refugee camp that was supposed to be his refuge.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing physically and of course emotionally traumatized. And then getting on a plane \u2014 not knowing where he was going until he\u2019s about to travel and then finding out he\u2019s going to San Francisco,\u201d she continued. \u201cOn the way to the airport, we had this wonderful Iraqi LGBT volunteer who came five years ago as a refugee himself and he says to me, five minutes before the [new] guy arrives, \u2018I\u2019m five years old; I was born when I came down that escalator five years ago and this guy is about to be born.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd down the escalator comes this jet black African guy who is obviously very gay \u2014 in the way you can tell by his escalator ride,\u201d she said, drawing knowing laughter from the staff, some of whom are LGBT themselves. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t hide it. That\u2019s why his life was in danger. On the way back from the airport, our volunteer says that after we drop him off, he\u2019s going to The Castro, and [the new guy] says, \u2018Can I come with you?!\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really just remarkable to witness his journey from hell to heaven,\u201d Weiss said.<\/p>\n The LGBT refugees aren\u2019t the only ones who are transformed by the experience.<\/p>\n \u201cI came from a culture where LGBT was not even spelled out,\u201d Katz said. \u201cIn my medical school I was taught that it was a kind of psychiatric problem or disorder. For me, this is a big transformation from my background, from my Jewish background.\u201d<\/p>\n While Katz was aware of her Jewish origins growing up in the former Soviet Union, she was not religious, didn\u2019t attend synagogue, or celebrate the Jewish holidays. That came much later, when the decision whether and how to express her spiritual identity was hers alone after she arrived in the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we lived in Russia, you didn\u2019t have a choice to buy black shoes or brown shoes. You bought what you could buy,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have the freedom to be who you are here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u2014 from The Talmud<\/strong><\/p>\nA Journey Begins<\/h3>\n
Resettlement for All<\/h3>\n
Finding a New Freedom<\/h3>\n