Join HIAS for a Friday night service with a special guest Raphael Marcus, Chief Programs Officer at HIAS. Raphael’s conversation will focus on HIAS’ response to the global refugee crisis in Israel, the US, and elsewhere in the context of democratic backsliding coinciding with anti-refugee sentiment.

HIAS Chief Programs Officer Raphael Marcus Raphael Marcus joined HIAS in 2018, overseeing International Programs, US Programs, Emergency Response and Humanitarian Partnership, Policy, and Practice. Before HIAS, he served as the Director of International Operations and the Chief Security Officer and Desk Officer for East Africa at Humedica International, a Germany-based humanitarian organization focusing on medical rapid-response aid mechanisms and complex emergencies. Over the years, Raphael led emergency humanitarian operations in disasters such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the 2015 Nepal Earthquake, the 2014 Liberia Ebola Outbreak, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and in protracted crises such as the famine in the Horn of Africa, the civil unrest in the Central African Republic and the Syrian refugee crisis. He currently provides extensive leadership over HIAS’ ongoing response to the war in Ukraine and the unfolding crisis on the Chadian-Sudanese border, among other crises worldwide.

Raphael is an expert in humanitarian emergency response and has an MPH in Emergency and Disaster Management from Tel Aviv University. Raphael served three years in the IDF as a staff sergeant and medical team leader in an elite Special Forces reconnaissance unit. Raphael was born in Bern, Switzerland, where his father served as the Chief Rabbi and, at the age of fourteen, made Aliyah along with his family.