Dina Kraft : These Holocaust survivors warn of the bleak future awaiting the asylum seekers Israel plans to deport ***
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Celina Shapil spent the winter of 1943 on the run
from the Nazis, crossing the borders of Poland, Slovakia and Hungary on
foot through the snow at age 17.
Now,
this 92-year-old Holocaust survivor sees her own story reflected in the
plight of African asylum seekers in Israel, and when she heard of the government’s plan to deport them, she was outraged. And then she decided it was time to speak out. I too have lived through a situation where the
whole world was apathetic. I know what it feels like to be alone and
feel like no one cares,” she told Haaretz. “It’s shameful we are the
ones now doing this. It should not have to come to this so there needs
to be public pressure the government must change its policy.”
A group of Holocaust survivors sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday imploring him not to go ahead with his plan to deport African asylum seekers from Israel. They join a grassroots effort that already includes airline pilots, writers, college professors, doctors, lawyers, university
students, social workers, filmmakers and rabbis, attempting to prevent
the planned deportation by the Israeli government of nearly 40,000
African asylum seekers over the next two years to either their home
countries or other countries in Africa. “We – who know what it means to be a refugee, to
be without a home or a country that would protect and defend us from
violence and suffering – cannot understand how a Jewish government can
expel refugees and asylum seekers to a journey of pain, suffering and
death,” the 36 survivors wrote to Netanyahu.
Reports
from asylum seekers, predominately from Sudan and Eritrea who have
already made the return journey to Africa from Israel, are harrowing.
There are accounts collected by researchers of asylum seekers who left
Israel being robbed, sold into human trafficking and even killed.
Diaspora
Jews have also been among those pushing Israel to reconsider its
policy, citing Jewish values and invoking the Biblical injunction to
“not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt”
(Exodus 22:21) as well as the Jewish people’s long history with flight
from persecution and genocide.
Thousands
have signed petitions and hundreds of people turned out for meetings on
a rain-soaked Wednesday night in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv organized by a
group called Standing Together (Omdim Beyachad) to fight the
deportations. Thousands of Israelis called on airline workers not to
take part in flights that would take the asylum seekers to Africa in a
campaign organized by the group Zazim and a new national organization
founded by university students has sprung up called “Stop the
Deportation” and is holding protests and setting up information booths
across the country.
The
backlash and civil society organization is being joined by many people
who were not involved in the past, veteran activists say.
The
first asylum seekers came to Israel a little over a decade ago.
Originally most were from the Darfur region of Sudan, seeking refuge
from the savage civil war raging there, but then tens of thousands more
joined from elsewhere in Sudan and Eritrea, posing a moral puzzle over
how to handle the influx to Israel, a country founded in the shadow of
the Holocaust whose Jewish population is largely descended from refugees
from Nazi Europe or Middle Eastern countries.
In
the last week, some Holocaust survivors have even offered to hide
asylum seekers in their own homes and hundreds of other Israelis have
offered to do the same.
“Deportation
is like a red line for many people. Until now we could just sit at home
and say ‘Oh no, this is bad.’ And for the past few years people who
care and follow the issue have been outraged, but this is the last
straw,” said Ella Navot, a 24-year-old sociology student at Tel Aviv
University and one of the founders of “Stop the Expulsion.”
Navot started volunteering with asylum seekers four years ago, teaching basic computer skills at a learning center.
“There
are so many aspects to what drew me to this. I could talk about the
fact that my grandmother is a Holocaust survivor or about my parents who
are left-wing and have always advocated for human rights, but really
what brought me to it is when I met the people themselves and started to
understand the issue. They became friends and when one hears their
stories one cannot ignore them,” she said.
A campaign was launched last week, calling
on Israelis to hide asylum seekers if it becomes necessary, was
inspired, its organizers say, by the story of Anne Frank. The massive
response to the campaign, now called Miklat Yisrael (Israel Refuge) took
its organizers, including American-born Rabbi Susan Silverman of
Jerusalem who came up with the idea, by surprise.
“We
are getting an amazing response,” said Silverman, with hundreds of
requests from both individuals and groups, including kibbutzim. And this
is before, she notes, they begin doing official outreach. Among the
communities volunteering are some located in the West Bank.
“And
here we are, a bunch of lefties going, ‘What?’ But it turns out we can
find common ground. Stopping people from being sent to their deaths is
one of those ways,” she said.
Silverman,
whose sister is the American comedian Sarah Silverman, said she is
heartened that so many are coming forward to say no to deportation,
including, for example, a letter by flight attendants, who announced
they would not work on flights that were deporting the asylum seekers.
“Every link in the deportation chain is beginning to be blocked,” she said.
Sivan
Carmel, Director of HIAS Israel, which for years has been among the
main non-profits working to help the asylum seekers, is heartened by the
rush of new activism and resistance among Israelis and Diaspora Jews.
“I
welcome it. I think it’s amazing that every day we hear new people
speak out,” she said. “As Israelis this is about being connected to our
heritage – knowing what our values are about and what kind of society we
want to raise our kids in.”
Carmel
said that despite the government attempts to paint the asylum seekers
as economic migrants and not refugees, calling them dangerous and
labeling them as “infiltrators”, Israeli citizens are heeding the call
to action. Out of approximately 35,000 Sudanese and Eritrean migrants
in Israel, only eleven to date have been granted official asylum here.
“People
are beginning to understand the facts that many of them are asylum
seekers who fled from persecution, but less than half percent have
received refugee status even though most of their counterparts from
Sudan and Eritrea have been determined to be refugees in other
countries," said Carmel.
Michael
Sfard, a well-known human rights lawyer was among lawyers across the
country who signed a public letter against the deportations.
“I
think we lawyers have to cry out and voice our position that this is a
reprehensible act even if it is done or portrayed as being done by legal
means and going through legal channels because in the most profound way
it is illegal,” said Sfard.
Shapil,
who made it to present-day Israel’s shores in 1944 after fleeing into a
Russian-held part of Romania, continues to mourn her parents and
younger brother who were murdered in Auschwitz, but feels lucky to have
been able to rebuild her life here. She hopes the African asylum seekers
will find refuge here too.
Otherwise, she warns, “We will go down terribly in history.”
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