A couple weeks ago, I had the great privilege of meeting Jill Levenfeld, a woman originally of Los Angeles who works tirelessly with many organizations around Israel.  I was telling her my story and my interest in getting involved in more conflict situations in the country – God knows there are plenty.  The one I brought up was the refugee situation that is largely based in South Tel Aviv – she offered to get me on a tour of the refugee center that a friend of hers was putting together.

It turned out to be more of an informational meeting than a tour, which makes sense because there is not really anything to tour and certainly not a refugee center.  A worker from The African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) met us and talked to us about the situation and the work they do – it turns out they are one of two organizations in place that work on the refugee situation in Israel, but all they can do is offer help supplying the basic needs of the asylum seekers.

There are more than 60,000 refugees in Israel seeking asylum – due to immense pressure the Ministry of the Interior agreed to interview asylum seekers on an individual basis about a decade back – thus far they have interviewed almost 20,000 individuals and granted asylum and rights to 19 individuals.

The vast majority of the asylum seekers are Eritrean (60%) and Sudanese (25%) – none of whom are interviewed, they are kept in a sort of limbo in which every three months they are granted three month tourist visas on which is printed “no work allowed.” Yet, the country does not deport these people, does not punish those who employ them, and, in fact, the city of Tel Aviv is their largest employer, as hypocritical as that seems.  Because of this ‘status,’ the asylum seekers are easily taken advantage of – there are stories such as: a group of refugees was bused to the north where they worked for a month with housing and food supplied and promise of pay – when they were returned to Levinsky Park (the center of situation, an outdoor area where thousands gather every night to sleep), they were abandoned without any pay;

a second story – an employer hires an asylum seeker until one day before his pay his due, he then reports the refugee to the police for any excuse such as “I expect him of stealing my tools” or “He may have broken in one night,” and the refugee is arrested and detained, without any rights he/she has no ability to hire a lawyer or go through due process – simply he/she goes to the detention center.

Speaking of the detention center, the Negev will soon boast the largest one in the world – able to hold some 15,000 people – basically it will be a huge prison for refugees.

Israel knows it can not return the Eritrean and Sudanese nationals back to their countries at this point – these are two of the most dangerous countries on Earth with two of the most oppressive regimes on Earth, and for that matter, Israel and Sudan do not even share diplomatic relations so it would be impossible.  A scary fact – as of January 2012, “the rate of recognition in the world for Eritrean asylum seekers is 84 percent. The global rate of recognition for Sudanese asylum seekers is 64 percent” (Berman and Feller).  How is it possible that Israel does not recognize 1 out of some 45,000…

A Seder put on for the refugees at Levinsky Park

We as Jews have a responsibility to these refugees of the world, especially with the onset of Pesach.  These are human beings who crossed the Sinai to escape oppression, torture, likely death to reach the land they judge to be the safest in the world (in Israel there is little risk of human trafficking).  We are taught to remember OUR escape from Egypt, OUR exile through the desert to get to Israel as if we actually did it ourselves, yet there is little pressure put on a Jewish government to accept the people who actually made that journey, risking everything.

I have pledged to make an effort myself, to get involved to some degree in Tel Aviv and help the refugees to achieve basic needs and spread the word of their struggle.  The government must open itself and this land, to some human beings at least, and not keep them stuck in a position of “acceptable poverty.”  There is nowhere to go after reaching Israel, move on forward, you reach Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia… unsafe countries themselves, and back only gets you back to the dangers of Africa.

Recently, in response to this problem, Canada in coordination with other countries of the world made an offer to Israel – accept a number you deem acceptable, and we will take every other refugee off your hands – the answer: No.

Sorry for the late update – it has been a busy week or so.

Last Tuesday, we had our final set of 2 workshops to see how the potential new kids interacted together and participated for the final selection (starting in a few minutes!).  Just a few hours before it was set to begin, one of the two facilitators called in sick and I got the call to step up and facilitate.

Certainly I was nervous – with just a little time to speak with my co-facilitator in advance – to step in to two sessions of 21 kids and run a workshop.  It got off to a bit of a rough start when the icebreaker game of the first workshop went off with a lack of energy… but as soon as the next activity started it went very smoothly the rest of the way and the second one even better!

The layout was set in advance and only one small change was made for the second workshop, in order to get some pep in to the kids and make them more energetic.  That change was the first activity – a quick game of Simon Says, followed by a fun name game. We followed it up with an activity where the kids split in to groups and use nothing but balloons and tape to build as big a tower as possible without speaking – an interesting activity to see how they do with communication and interaction.  We played another game and then did a one-on-one activity where the kids get to know someone from another religion and introduce them to the group and end with feedback.

It was a little bit of a nerve racking to see how it would all go with the last second call, but it was exciting to see the success of it all!  Now, I am joining the final selection committee to decide which 24 out of some 90 kids will be selected – an extremely difficult job indeed.

Other good highlights of the past week: a successful meeting with Rebecca that determined my work for the next 6 months decisively and a decision of my job titles – I am the Director of Monitoring and Evaluation and the Co-Director of Camp Logistics. Speaking of the camp – I met the Roots4Peace kids (3rd year participants) who will be in the camp I am co-planning and then drove down south to Kibbutz Ketura where we will be putting it on for the weekend.  It was beautiful but SO HOT!  We are all set now to plan out a daily schedule and finalize the budget – we are all so excited for this fist ever local camp which will be based on nature and culture and include solo time in the desert, visiting the sand dunes, a night in Eilat with water sports, and so many other excellent activities.

Great things happening with life in Israel right now!!!