From Sudan to Jerusalem
Refugees travel from Sudan north through Egypt to Israel
One of the hot topics in the news these past months has been the steady influx of refugees from Africa who have crossed the border between Egypt and Israel, and Israel’s subsequent response of building a fence to keep the Africans out.
With 1,000 refugees arriving every month now, the issue is not trivial. It’s further complicated by the historical Jewish imperative to treat the less fortunate with kindness and compassion and not close the floodgates.
Until recently, the subject was mostly theoretical for me. I had never sat down and actually talked with someone who had made the long journey northward and slipped across the Sinai border.
So I was very intrigued when the opportunity arose to spend a Shabbat meal with a refugee from Darfur, now living in Jerusalem and working as a cleaner. “Jack” had earlier in the day given a talk at our synagogue. He joined us at the Shabbat table of our friends Bob and Ruth, accompanied by a volunteer from the U.S. who is helping him write and edit his speaking material.
Jack was quite articulate as he explained who was fighting whom, why, and for how long. We learned about peace agreements that have been broken, and the current struggles by southern Sudan to secede from the violent north.
Near the end of the conversation, I decided to ask a tough and potentially inflammatory question. What did Jack think of the fence Israel is building? He must be against something that would prevent his country-mates from finding safe haven in Israel, I imagined. His answer surprised me.
Jack was all for the fence, he said. He understood Israel’s dilemma and explained that, as a small country, Israel could not be expected to absorb refugees indefinitely. The fence should be built…but here was the kicker: all refugees already in Israel should receive legal resident status and be allowed to work and build their families here.
What would happen to other would-be asylum seekers, I asked? There were other countries in Africa that would take in the displaced Sudanese, Jack assured us. Once word filtered south that there was now a wall preventing entry into Israel, the flow would surely stop.
I’m not sure what to make of Jack’s response. Was he presenting a politically balanced position calculated to win Israeli favor, or was he thinking only about how to make the best of his own situation, while cynically turning a blind eye to others in a similar, bleak predicament?
The fence and the African migration test Israel’s conceptions about what kind of country we want to be. Should we be a refuge for at least some of the world’s most downtrodden? Or must we protect ourselves from the slippery slope of a demographic a danger.
I don’t have an easy answer. And neither, apparently, did our new friend Jack.
For the birds
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Social Justice, Travel
We didn’t really expect the Hula Argamon bird sanctuary to be so crowded when we stopped by for a visit last week while on a vacarion in the Galilee.
But it was packed – not with people, although there were plenty of human visitors riding around the 10-kilometer circular trail on rented vehicles including standard mountain bikes, family-style bikes for four, or golf carts. But I’m talking about the winged-guests, in the guise of over 40,000 cranes who have planted themselves at the Hula expanse.
It’s part of the Crane Project, initiated by the Jewish National Fund, to aid local farmers during the cranes’ migration to and from Africa twice a year. The cranes have traditionally stopped at farmers fields and ravaged their crops, until the JNF initiated the project.
To protect the farmer’s crops, approximately 280 acres have been set aside to be scattered every day with two tons of corn seed for the cranes. The cranes have enjoyed the hospitality so much, they’ve told their friends about it, and the Agamon has been inundated in recent weeks with the feathered creatures who have created a living carpet on the Hula grounds.
It’s a sight to behold, and you can still see it for the next few weeks, as well as enjoy everything else the Hula has to offer. You can read all about the Agamon from Israel’s most knowledgeable naturist, Aviva Bar-Am, here.
Foto Friday – Nigeria-Tel Aviv
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, Food, Foto Friday, General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Movies, Music, Travel
The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria celebrated the Tel Aviv Centennial this week with a festival of arts, culture and cuisine. The festivities, which will culminate on Sunday, included Nigerian gourmet meals prepared under the direction of Chef Charlie Fadida, executive chef of the Tel Aviv Sheraton hotel, together with the dynamic Janet Olisa, wife of the Nigerian Ambassador and a team of Nigerian culinary experts. This came in addition to performances, at the annual Jaffa Nights festival, of traditional African music, song and dance performed by troupes from Nigeria.
The festival also included the opening of a photography exhibition, “Nigeria Through the Eyes of A Passerby”, by Victor Politis. An award-winning photographer and entrepreneur, Politis is founder and CEO of PRI, an international project development and financial advisory company with a focus on emerging markets. His business travels have also afforded him the opportunity to explore his passion for photography and documenting an ever- globalizing world. More about Politis can be found here.
The Nigerian Festival Week includes a film festival featuring the best of “Nollywood“. The Nigerian movie industry, it transpires, is the third largest in the world in terms of number of films produced annually. I did not know that! The festival is held under the auspices of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, the Nigerian Friendship Association and other organizations from Israel and overseas.
Refugee photography
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, coexistence, Immigrant Moments
Since late 2006, an estimated 10,000 African refugees and asylum seekers have arrived in Israel, crossing the border with Egypt on foot. After a long period of not knowing what to do with these people, several governmental bodies have since begun assisting them via a variety of humanitarian projects.
NGOs have been paying attention as well, with initiatives like Fugee Fridays organizing grassroots efforts to bring food from the Carmel Market to hungry refugees. A related organization, called ActiveVision, offering activities and workshops for refugees in the digital visual media arts. Since the late summer, one workshop project called “Asylum City” has taught a group of pupils how to operate still and video cameras as tools for conveying a message. Assignments mostly focused on documenting the community of asylum seeking families living in Tel Aviv, with the results yielding a print publication and a photo exhibition.
As Fugee Fridays co-founder Daniel Cherrin puts it in a recent piece for Haaretz,
The [Asylum City] course was extremely successful and instructors were able to teach the importance of filmmaking and storytelling both in theory and in practice. As a result, some very interesting and important films were produced. The group thus also actively takes part in spreading the awareness of their own situation.
Many of the older images from Asylum City can be seen here, while the latest batch, including profiles of some of the photographers, can be seen here. A slideshow of images from the workshops themselves can be seen here. Last week, a photo exhibition opened at the Shapira Quarter home of Y Circus.
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