Resettling Syrian Refugees A Greater Boston Perspective

Featuring

MARC JACOBS
Chief Executive Officer of Jewish Family Service of Metrowest

Under his leadership the JFS array of services has multiplied, constantly responding to changing community needs and working to Stand Up for Those Left Behind. There are deep partnerships with Combined Jewish Philanthropies and numerous community foundations based on the fact that JFS always delivers the very best services and outcomes, and in an efficient manner. The current JFS Syrian Refugee Humanitarian Project is a large and diverse coalition creating new lives and possibilities, especially for young children, the innocent victims of that horrific war.

LUCIA CARBALLO PANICHELLA
Director of Immigrant Services at Jewish Family Service and Project Leader for the JFS Syrian Refugee Humanitarian Project

A Tufts Alumna, Lucia is leading the full operations teams of staff and volunteers for the Syrian Refigee Humanitarian Project. There are over 250 volunteers across multiple synagogues, Islamic Centers, Syrian American organizations and JFS itself involved in the overall project with several dozen directly involved with the lives of the Syrian Refugee families. Lucia has built the professional teams and the ongoing relationships to coalition members and community resources that are all wrapped around creating opportunities and choices for the Syrian refugee families.

JENNA RUSSELL
Reporter and Member of the Spotlight Team at the Boston Globe

She was recognized by the American Society of Newspaper Editors as a finalist for the 2017 Batten Medal for public service journalism. A longtime projects reporter for the Globe, Jenna produced the three-part series “Brave and Afraid”, about one family’s struggle to find mental health care for their son, in 2014. Jenna also worked on “68 Blocks: Life, Death, Hope,” the Globe’s ground-breaking 2012 multimedia series based on a year-long immersion in one of Boston’s most violent neighborhoods, which won first place for journalistic innovation at the National Headliner Awards. She is co-author of Long Mile Home, about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. She is currently working on a series on Syrian refugees in the Boston area.

“CRIES from SYRIA”

Also shown will be an excerpt from the new documentary “CRIES FROM SYRIA”, a searing, comprehensive account of a brutal five-year conflict from the inside out, drawing on hundreds of hours of war footage from Syrian activists and citizen journalists, as well as testimony from child protestors, leaders of the revolution, human rights defenders, ordinary citizens, and high-ranking army generals who defected from the government. A documentary by Evgeny Afineevsky, director of the Oscar-nominated film Winter on Fire, “Cries From Syria” premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

*Photo by Suzanne Kreiter, Boston Globe