1946
United Service for New Americans (USNA) was organized through a merger of the National Refugee Service and the Service to Foreign Born of the National Council of Jewish Women in response to the postwar influx of Jewish refugees into the United States.
1947
United Jewish Appeal (UJA), Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF) undertook a study--at USNA's request--and recommended that a local agency be organized to assume responsibility for assisting immigrants in New York.
1949
NYANA was established to deal specifically with New York immigration, while USNA continued to function on a national level.
1949 - 1953
Resettlement of Displaced Persons. Between July 1949 and April 1951, NYANA helped resettle 38,000 Jewish refugees.
1955
Resettlement of Hungarian Jews. In 1957, NYANA's Hungarian refugee resettlement program was implemented on an emergency basis. During the first two months, NYANA helped as many refugees as had been expected for the entire year.
1961 - 1967
Resettlement of Cuban Jews. NYANA helped 1700 refugees; 144 were unaccompanied children. This was the second uprooting for half of these 1700, since many had fled from the Nazis.
1968 - 1972
Resettlement of Soviet Jews. In 1969, the Soviet Union issued 13,000 exit visas. Some 11,000 came to the U.S., half of them to New York; 95% of those were helped by NYANA. The year 1973 saw a marked acceleration in the rate of arrivals, starting in August. In a seven-week period, NYANA helped as many Soviet refugees as it did during all of 1972. In 1974, expenditures for Soviet refugees totaled nearly $2.8 million, a figure exceeded only during NYANA's early years of assisting Displaced Persons. The Soviet Jewish exodus peaked in 1979, when 14,000 new arrivals came to New York.
1969 - 1970
Resettlement of Soviet Jews. In 1969, the Soviet Union issued 13,000 exit visas. Some 11,000 came to the U.S., half of them to New York; 95% of those were helped by NYANA. The year 1973 saw a marked acceleration in the rate of arrivals, starting in August. In a seven-week period, NYANA helped as many Soviet refugees as it did during all of 1972. In 1974, expenditures for Soviet refugees totaled nearly $2.8 million, a figure exceeded only during NYANA's early years of assisting Displaced Persons. The Soviet Jewish exodus peaked in 1979, when 14,000 new arrivals came to New York.
1972
Resettlement of Ugandans. For the first time since World War II, NYANA assisted refugees of faiths other than Judaism.
1975
Resettlement of Vietnamese. U.S. Department of State requested that the American Jewish community assist in a nationwide resettlement of 10,000 refugees from Indochina, primarily Vietnam and some from Cambodia. NYANA established its Indochinese Refugee Resettlement Unit.
1977
Resettlement of Syrian Jews. NYANA received 550 women released from Syria as a result of negotiations between the U.S. and the Syrian government. Included were 13 Jewish women who emigrated after proxy marriages to American Jews.
1980
NYANA received its first federally funded matching grant for resettlement of Jewish refugees through the Council of Jewish Federations.
1982
Committee of Five study concluded that NYANA must be maintained to respond to refugee emergency influx and extraordinary needs, and should remain an independent agency under national sponsorship.
1984
Resource development program established to get government and foundation funding for expansion of services.
1988
Foundation and government grants fund expanded services in areas of vocational services, language training, health care and community development.
1989
NYANA developed a unique computerized case accounting system which replaced manual record keeping for all service activities.
1990
NYANA resettled the largest influx of Jewish refugees (20,000) to arrive in any single year since the immediate aftermath of World War II.
A program was created to allow graduate students in social work and counseling to train at NYANA.
1991
Development of Health Education Program and Legal Services and Citizenship Project to service the general foreign-born population of New York.
Establishment of "cluster site" for resettlement of Tibetan immigrants to New York incooperation with the Tibetan U.S. Resettlement Project.
1992
Establishment of campus of resettlement services at 17 Battery Place in New York City. FEGS, Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services (JBFCS), Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council), and the Board of Jewish Education (BJE), establish offices at NYANA headquarters to create integrated service delivery system.
1993
In cooperation with the Office of Tibet, initiated the Tibetan Community Assistance Project (TCAP) to provide technical advice and assistance to Tibetan resettlement operations throughout the U.S.
1994
While reaffirming NYANA's traditional commitment to Jewish refugees, the Board of Directors set new strategic goals for the agency:
1) Extend services to immigrants
2) Maintain a constant service capacity rather than expand and contract in response to fluctuations in the flow of refugees
1995
Rescue and resettlement of 4,000 Syrian Jews, many of whom would subsequently immigrate to Israel.
1996
Micro-enterprise Development Program assists businesses at various stages of development with loans, training, and technical assistance.
1996 - 2008
In addition to serving refugees, NYANA initiates the development of new and innovative services for the general immigrant population.
2003
Youth Services Department was created to offer young people from disadvantaged homes mentoring and support services. The New York School to Career Partnership and Out of School Time (OST) program provides comprehensive development services to youngsters in foster care and provides services for job training, employment placement, education, health and housing referral, community engagement and financial literacy classes for youngsters 16-21 who will soon be too old to qualify for foster care.