The New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) was a Jewish immigrant and refugee support organization founded in 1949 that closed in 2008 due to declining demand for its services and declining financial support. NYANA was a long-standing beneficiary of U.S. government grants and funding from Jewish organizations, especially the United Jewish Communities (UJC), now known as the Jewish Federations of North America. ¹

NYANA should not be confused with the New York State Office for New Americans, a division of the New York State Department of State founded in 2012 and still operating to support new immigrants. ²

History

The New York Association for New Americans was founded in 1949 by the United Service for New Americans, a non-governmental Jewish organization, to support Jewish immigrants “who fled persecution and chaos, mostly from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.” NYANA worked closely with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS). At its peak, NYANA aided 50,000 immigrants in 1992 and had a budget of $90 million. ^{1 3}

Over the course of almost 60 years, NYANA was estimated to help resettle 500,000 Jews, but annual resettlements declined after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, falling to 55,000 in 2005. In 2004, Mark Handelman, who had led NYANA for over 25 years, resigned after “an intense, mainly unsuccessful struggle to preserve his agency intact in the face of a precipitous decline in the number of Jewish refugees arriving in New York.” One of Handelman’s unsuccessful attempts was to expand NYANA’s mission to supporting non-Jewish immigrants. ^{1 4}

In July 2008, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that NYANA was starting to wind down its operations due to low funding and demand. During the previous year, NYANA helped 300 to 400 immigrants and had a budget of $7.5 million, largely from government grants and the United Jewish Communities, now known as the Jewish Federations of North America. UJC was set to cut its annual contribution to NYANA from $1.2 million to $500,000. ¹

During its final years, NYANA attempted to expand its services to appeal to new immigrants and attract more government grants, including by operating a mental health clinic, providing counseling for domestic abuse victims, and providing microloans to small businesses. In 2008, NYANA hosted a fundraising dinner, but only raised $50,000. Given the falling demand for NYANA’s services, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency noted that NYANA was criticized for not preemptively switching its programs from supporting new immigrants to supporting older immigrants. ¹

In November 2008, NYANA shut down. ⁵

Controversies

In February 2025, Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer issued an order stopping Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing U.S. Treasury accounts as part of DOGE efforts to cut the size of the federal bureaucracy, including funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). ⁶ In response, numerous right-wing media outlets and X account holders accused Judge Engelmayer of having a conflict of interest because his wife, Emily Mandelstam, worked for the New York Association for New Americans, an organization allegedly funded by USAID. ^{7 8}

However, NYANA has been defunct since 2008. ⁵ According to a New York Times wedding report from 1994, Mandelstam was a program development specialist at NYANA at the time. A biography for Mandelstam on a website for a documentary that came out in 2022 lists her as having previously been “a writer, researcher, and editor at various civil-rights and pro-immigration organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund… and the New York Association for New Americans.” Though it is not clear when Mandelstam stopped working at NYANA, there is no publicly available evidence that Judge Engelmayer or Mandelstam benefited from USAID grants within the last 16 years. ^{9 10}

1. Dickter, Adam. “NYANA To Close After Long Run Here.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. June 25, 2008. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://www.jta.org/2008/06/25/ny/nyana-to-close-after-long-run-here.
2. “About the Office for New Americans.” New York State. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://dos.ny.gov/about-office-new-americans.
3. “New York Archives magazine.” New York State Archives Partner Trust. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://www.nysarchivestrust.org/new-york-archives-magazine/magazine-highlights/spring-2008-volume-7-number-4.
4. Ruby, Walter. “Longtime NYANA Chief Quits.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. August 20, 2004. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://www.jta.org/2004/08/20/ny/longtime-nyana-chief-quits
5. Harris, Ben. “Jewish refugee agency shutting down.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency. November 20, 2008. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://www.jta.org/2008/11/20/culture/jewish-refugee-agency-shutting-down.
6. Cheney, Kyle. “Judge orders sweeping restriction on DOGE access to sensitive Treasury payment systems.” POLITICO. February 8, 2025. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/08/judge-blocks-doge-team-treasury-department-elon-musk-00203248.
7. “Milla Joy.” X. February 11, 2025. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://x.com/milalovesjoe/status/1889418277413368318?s=46&t=46991cNKmiaUxcU9rzIDXQ.
8. “Warren Peterson.” X. February 11, 2025. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://x.com/votewarren/status/1889350441114488994.
9. “WEDDINGS; E. F. Mandelstam, Paul Engelmayer.” New York Times. June 3, 1994. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/03/style/weddings-e-f-mandelstam-paul-engelmayer.html.
10. “The Team.” Four Winters. Accessed February 20, 2025. https://fourwintersfilm.com/team/the-team.