The Man Whom So Many of Us Forgot to Thank

I should have done it. I should have helped organize an event to honor Bruce Leimsidor for his 20 years of service as director of HIAS (formerly the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) in Central Europe between 1982-2002. I even knew what I would say during the event: 

“Hello, everyone. And hello, Bruce. My name is Tabby Refael and HIAS saved my family and me, and most of our relatives, from the clutches of the merciless regime in Iran after the 1979 revolution. On behalf of my family and my community of hundreds of thousands of Iranian Jews around the world, including nearly a quarter-million in Israel and over 80,000 in the United States: Thank you. Thank you, Bruce, and please forgive us, because for over 40 years, we did not properly thank you. If, today, we live in freedom and fulfillment, it is primarily thanks to you.” 

I should have finalized that event. But I didn’t, because I figured there would be plenty of time to complete the task. And then, in April, Leimsidor passed away.

He died in Italy at age 80, and his funeral was held in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice on April 19. 

As HIAS director in Central Europe, Leimsidor was based in Vienna. During that time, he helped tens of thousands of Jews, mostly from Iran, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (and a small number from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ethiopia) who had one commonality: They had suddenly found themselves as refugee applicants who desperately needed to develop claims for entry to countries in the West. Back then, the State Department had one overseas processing office that covered U.S. refugee admissions through Central Europe, and it was HIAS. 

I don’t know how Leimsidor or his staff did it. I’m not referring to navigating the bureaucracy and red tape of asylum laws, or working at desks piled high with thousands of paper files and applications. That was hard enough.

But I’m referring to the fact that Leimsidor documented thousands of human rights abuses and acts of discrimination, often in vivid, disturbing detail. He needed to make cases for these Jews and present them to immigration authorities. At its height, HIAS in Central Europe was presenting cases for up to 3,000 clients per month. “The people [Jews in Iran] who are leaving now had really, really tried to stay,” Leimsidor said in a November 1986 interview with The New York Times, adding that two-thirds of Jewish refugees from Iran had been tortured or physically mistreated. “The people who are coming out now have really suffered.” 

HIAS is the world’s oldest refugee protection agency. Since its inception in 1881, it has helped resettle over 4.5 million people, including historian and political theorist Hannah Arendt, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, actress Mila Kunis, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and WhatsApp co-creator Jan Koum. Emma Lazarus, whose poetic words grace the Statue of Liberty, was a refugee caseworker. Born in the U.S., she worked for the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society.

One former HIAS recipient who has never forgotten the organization’s life-saving work is Mandana Dayani, one of the subjects of my cover story in this week’s issue, which profiles Dayani and actress/activist Debra Messing. HIAS rescued Dayani and her family from Iran when she was a little girl and helped resettle her in the U.S. 

Today, Dayani is a force of nature. An attorney and entrepreneur, she has been a fearless civic action and Jewish activist, and creator and co-founder of I Am a Voter, a non-partisan civic engagement organization. Dayani is a testament to the extraordinary capabilities of a young girl or woman if she is extracted from a tyrannical theocracy and offered a chance to live up to her potential in freedom and dignity. 

Many Jews have heard of HIAS, but few knew about Leimsidor. I asked Mark Hetfield, president and CEO of HIAS, about Leimsidor’s legacy. “Bruce Leimsidor was an amazing intellectual,” he told me. “He was a humanitarian, and at a key time in European history, was the steward of one of HIAS’ greatest achievements — helping Jews and other religious minorities on their first stop, in Vienna, Austria, on their journey from totalitarianism to freedom.”

For over a decade, Leimsidor taught European asylum law and international relations at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. Concurrently, he was counselor for asylum affairs in the Venice municipality asylum seekers’ program. Before moving to Venice, he served as a senior resettlement expert at the United Nations Human Rights Council’s central resource center in Nairobi, Kenya.

I want to work with various Jewish communities, including Iranians and those from the former Soviet Union, to plan a tribute event for Bruce Leimsidor in LA this year.

Leimsidor wrote numerous op-eds and scholarly articles and was an academic and a visiting lecturer worldwide, including in Russia and Ukraine. He was disturbed by Russia’s war in Ukraine, but last April, he wrote in Ytali (Ytali.com), a Venice-based newspaper, that his sympathies for Ukraine were complex and limited due to that country’s collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. “Some of my extended family were burnt alive in their local synagogue by Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators,” wrote Leimsidor. 

Most of the HIAS recipients who Leimsidor helped in Vienna did not stay in touch with him. But one former refugee who made it a point to cultivate a friendship with him was Pooya Dayanim, a Los Angeles-based liaison between Iranian Jews and various governmental and nongovernmental entities. Dayanim first met Leimsidor as an 11-year-old Iranian Jewish refugee in Vienna, where he and his family were processed in 1984-1985. “It was the height of the Iran-Iraq War,” Dayanim told me, “and when we arrived, there were 120 Iranian Jews whom HIAS was helping in Vienna. When we left, there were about 2,700.” That number nearly doubled between 1983-1987.

As a child, Dayanim viewed Leimsidor as a “tall, intimidating man.” But as the former became more active in advocacy on behalf of Iranian Jews, he visited Vienna as an adult and developed a meaningful connection with Leimsidor, who had saved him and his family. 

During his trips to Vienna, Dayanim would always meet with Leimsidor and ask him about the status of Jewish refugees from Iran. By the late 1990s, the number of Jews fleeing Iran had dwindled significantly. Dayanim cites that 95% of those who left the country did so between 1980-2002. 

“I really admired him,” said Dayanim, who stayed in touch with Leimsidor through long-distance phone calls and facsimiles. “He was a liberal Jewish humanist; a philosopher who was devoted to tikkun olam. He spoke many languages; a true man of the world,” Dayanim said. In a tribute to Leimsidor last month, Ytali called him a “global citizen.”

I asked Dayanim if Leimsidor ever expressed hope that those he helped would officially recognize his life-saving work. “He wished that the Iranian Jews who were resettled in America would have checked on HIAS and its later efforts for Iranian Jews more,” he said. Dayanim then asserted, “Our community in the U.S. should have given large financial contributions to HIAS whenever possible.” I am in complete agreement with Dayanim. 

“Bruce would have appreciated being recognized,” said Dayanim, who, before the pandemic, spoke with Leimsidor about a possible event in Los Angeles to singularly recognize his contributions. But then, the pandemic began. “It was going to be a night of recognition,” said Dayanim. “And we would have taped Bruce’s oral history about our community. He was looking forward to it.” 

I remember discussing such an event with Dayanim and our mutual friend, Sam Yebri, co-founder and former president of 30 Years After. Though HIAS, as an organization, has been recognized at L.A. events in the past, I will always regret that I didn’t help bring an event that would honor Leimsidor to life. 

As a former child refugee, I’ve found that many of us do not wish to look back at the past. There are some who are even repelled by the idea of being reminded that they came to this country as refugees. 

But if anything, we refugees should wear our past as a badge of honor, because it shows precisely how far we have come. “Bruce devoted his life to marginalized people,” said Dayanim. “Those of us who were in Vienna, especially, will always remember that tall, very well-dressed, classy man. Our lives were in his hands. Our community could have done better to have recognized him.”

I want to work with various Jewish communities, including Iranians and those from the former Soviet Union, to plan a tribute event for Bruce Leimsidor in L.A. this year, and to also ensure that more stories and initiatives are devoted to this selfless man whom we should have thanked decades ago. Please, join me.

Tabby Refael is an award-winning, Iranian American Jewish writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TabbyRefael