Let the children stay
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Israeliness, Life, Politics
There hasn’t been a more sensitive issue on the Israeli table the last few months than that of children of foreign workers. Over 1,200 children of non-Israelis – mostly from Africa, who have been working in Israel for the last decade – are in danger of being deported by the government, despite the fact they were born here, speak Hebrew, and aside from the coveted identity card are as Israeli as anyone else.
The catch? They’re not Jewish.
This week, an interministerial committee was supposed to tackle the issue ahead of a November 1st deadline that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had set to come up with a solution to their plight. Their decision – to enable the children to remain in Israel through the end of the school year, and then we’ll see.
The campaign to deport the children is being led by Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the leader of the Shas party. He’s been adamant that the children of foreign workers not be given residency or citizenship in Israel in order to preserve the Jewish nature of the country.
According to Ha’aretz, Yishai does not object to Monday’s decision to postpone deporting the children and their parents until the end of the school year, saying this was for “humanitarian reasons.” But he stressed that he will not agree to any further postponements and will vehemently oppose granting the children citizenship or residency.
Allowing these children to stay in Israel “is liable to damage the state’s Jewish identity, constitute a demographic threat and increase the danger of assimilation,” he said, adding that he would give up his ministry if the government decides to let the children stay.
On behalf of all forward looking people in Israel, let me say that we look forward to the day that happens.
Minister for Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman, representing the humane side of Israeli society, said he couldn’t envision Israel resorting to deporting the children, who want to stay here, serve in the army and be productive members of society.
According to Ynet, he referred in a speech to a precedent established by prime minister Menachem Begin in 1977, where he granted Israeli citizenship to 179 Vietnamese refugees who escaped their homeland on boats after a regime change occurred in Vietnam. No country agreed to take the refugees in after being pulled out of the sea by an Israeli cargo ship.
“The State of Israel will be blemished should those 1,200 children not be accepted as Israeli citizens. It is humanitarianly the right thing to do. The issue must be solved and we are obligated to acknowledge them equal citizens of the State of Israel,” said Braverman.
It’s clear what the right thing to do here is. And if I need to risk the possibility that one of my children might one day want to marry an Israeli who isn’t Jewish, it’s a small price to pay.
Picture of the week – A green Yom Kippur for all the world
Filed under: Environment, General, Holidays, Picture of the Week
Children riding their bikes and bimbas on an empty street in Jerusalem. Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.
For some it’s a solemn day of fasting, prayer, and asking for forgiveness, for others – specifically children – Yom Kippur is the day they claim the streets.
Ever year, children all over the country hone their cycling skills as the traffic stops and the roads clear. Whether it’s on a bike, roller blades, scooters, bimbas, or even unicycles, the nation takes to the street in what is probably – ironically – one of the most joyous holidays of the year.
Aside from the sheer pleasure of cycling undisturbed down some of Israel’s main arteries – like route 6, or the Ayalon Freeway, the quality of undisturbed silence is unparalleled. There are no buses, no cars, no trains, no airplanes even. The only sound is the whir of bikes, and the calls of children.
And the air quality, well…
I’ve long thought that some form of Yom Kippur actually ought to be adopted by other countries as an environmental measure. This must be the greenest day in Israel.
Every year there are reports in the local press about the dramatic decline in air pollution throughout Israel’s towns and cities. It’s a chance for the country to breathe again. Imagine what would happen if London followed suit, or New York, or Beijing. Perhaps this should be the latest campaign for environmentalists.
Giving Till it Hurts
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Life, Medical Breakthroughs
They expected a large number of people – maybe 20,000 potential donors. But Ezer Mizion got far more than it bargained for on Wednesday, when it held a mass national campaign to add Israelis to its bone marrow registry; over 60,000 people crowded the 80 testing stations the organization had set up around the country, with long lines outside many of them as people waited patiently for their turn to be tested.
The large crowds had gathered at the donation stations to help find a bone marrow match for Dan, a three year old boy from Ramat Hasharon, and Amit, a six year old girl from Kfar Sava. Both have rare forms of leukemia, and both have rare tissue types that are found in less than 2% of the population, about 1 in 30,000 – meaning that finding a donor with compatible bone marrow with theirs for a transplant, which the two children desperately need to fight the cancer that has caused their own blood and lymphatic system to go haywire. So, the Ezer Mizion organization, which provides medical support services for those who need ongoing medical help, organized the bone marrow donor recruitment drive, setting up dozens of stations around the country on Wednesday where Israelis could go and have a small sample of their bone marrow taken in order to determine whether they could be compatible donors for Dan and Amit. 
The organization has run similar recruitment drives in the past, but Wednesday’s drive was by far the largest ever. My daughter waited on line for a chunk of time waiting for the test, which doesn’t necessarily hurt, but can be lengthy. Between the wait, the test, and the recovery time, she spent over two hours on the project – and there were thousands of others like her around the country, who took time off from work and school to help.
Why were so many willing to help this time? According to an acquaintance who works with the organization, Israelis are in a “giving” mood, having gotten into the habit in recent weeks, collecting supplies to send to soldiers on the front. Ezer Mizion established its marrow donot bank ten years ago, and so far has taken samples from 380,000 Israelis – and helped find hundreds of matches for individuals with leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, and immune deficiency syndromes.
If you donate marrow and your marrow is not a match for Dan and Amit, don’t worry – your information will go into the Ezer Mizion database, and you might get called on to help in the future. Besides marrow, Ezer Mizion needs money, too – in order to test the samples it collects (each sample costs $45 to test). Their phone number in Israel is 1800-236-236; any help will be greatly appreciated.
ISRAEL21C Behind the Filming: Science has no Borders
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, General, Life, War
I recently filmed a news story about the Weizmann Institute and the Davidson Institute opening their doors to children of the south. Since the war with Gaza started schools have been closed forcing children to stay home while rockets rain down on their towns. These kids are not being properly educated about the fundamentals, but rather learning the hard lessons of life under fire. The children who experience the daily barrage of rockets are suffering from emotional trauma and will most likely be scarred for life as they remember their childhood days hiding at home when the sirens went off.
The institutes are currently providing educational refuge on their campuses and will continue to do so until the war is over. Kids of all ages can play outside in their amazing science park (I didn’t get the chance to play but it looked like a lot of fun) or experiment in their science labs. (Note: the science experiment the children are doing in the video is how to make ice cream with dry ice…crazy!)
I interviewed Zvi Paltiel, the Director of Young at Science at the Davidson Institute who spoke with me about the current program geared towards children from the south. For the video I chose a sound bite where he is expressing the importance of having the children learning on campus during this stressful period. However, what I wasn’t able to include was his openness to having the program and the science mobiles (watch the video to learn what those are) available to the children of Gaza as well. I think he put it best when he said that “science has no borders.”
Israeli Tots At 82 Kindergartens To Learn Green ABC’s
In a special ceremony, held in Bar-Ilan University earlier this month, some 48 green kindergartens located in the Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, central and southern districts of Israel were certified “green.”
An additional 34 kindergartens were certified earlier in the month, on December 3 in Haifa, 8 of which came from the Arab sector, reports the Ministry of Environmental Protection website. This is good news to our ears.
In all, 82 Israeli green kindergartens were certified in 2008, compared to 32 in 2007. But what does it take to make Israeli tots green? Do the ganenets feed them organic food? Do they learn about recycling? Maybe they plant trees?
In order to be officially certified, kindergartens must demonstrate their achievements in three areas:
- Environmental curriculum
- Rational use of resources
- Contribution to the community
According to the Ministry, kindergartens have a critical role to play in setting the educational infrastructure or basis for the understanding of basic concepts at the personal and social levels. “Cultivating environmental literacy in the kindergarten is of major importance since it is at this early age that we can try to instill positive attitudes toward the human and physical environment, in the present and in the future,” they write.
Accreditation of Green Kindergartens Come With $ Incentive
The aim of the “Green Kindergarten” program is to lead kindergartens through an educational process in which the children, kindergarten teachers, assistants and parents take part in incorporating environmental subjects into the kindergarten.
The accreditation process for Green Kindergartens was initiated in 2006 by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. Coming along with a cash incentive, going green can also boost enrollment (it’s a new thing moms and dads can brag about at the park). In Israel it seems that most kindergartens are privatized. So the added marketability of teaching tots to go green can be a selling point.
Recycling Corner in a Petach Tikva kindergarten
Subscribe
Subscribe to Israelity via email:
Social Media
Categories
- A New Reality
- Art
- Blogging
- Business
- coexistence
- Crime
- design
- education
- Entertainment
- Environment
- Food
- Foto Friday
- General
- health
- History and Culture
- Holidays
- Immigrant Moments
- Israeliness
- Life
- Medical Breakthroughs
- Movies
- Music
- News
- Nostalgia Sunday
- Picture of the Week
- Politics
- Pop Culture
- Profiles
- Religion
- Science
- Social Justice
- Sports
- Technology
- Travel
- tv
- War
The Face of Israel Today
-
About Israelity
Free newsletter
Stories from ISRAEL21c.orgPopular Posts