Catch-22 for Sudanese refugees in Israel

Immigration occupies the attention of candidates because it occupies the attention of voters. Democrats and Republicans agree that America is fast approaching, or has already passed, its saturation point. There is antipathy to illegal immigrants and resentment against the infusion of Spanish language options at ATMs and on the telephone. But two diametrically opposed sub-cultures welcome the immigrants—exploitive capitalists to whom the availability of cheap labor is very seductive, and those imbued with the spirit of Emma Lazarus’ sonnet, “The New Colossus” which graces the Statue of Liberty, each glorifying the other. So, we are a conflicted nation.

Israel is as well. I offer as example Sudanese victims fleeing political violence. Some arrived in Egypt, only to find themselves subject to beatings by Muslim thugs, the same element which in the Sudan had driven them from their homes in the first place. Faced again with poverty and brutal treatment, many walked across the desert to the border of the Jewish State, where they were arrested and put in the Ketziot Prison in southern Israel (the men separated from their wives and children) housed with Palestinian terrorists and common criminals,. Their only crime was the attempt to cross Israel’s border without proper papers or authorization. Are they refugees? Well, not by the usual definition of the word. In Egypt, maybe, but once they left Egypt they became an indefinable something else. But what is not disputable is their condition—hungry, tired, poor, homeless, often sick, and subject to a repatriation, the consequences of which not even Dante could adequately describe.

But all is not completely bleak. Israeli authorities are willing to release the Sudanese families if they have a home to go to in Israel. Enter my wife’s cousin Glenn. First he formed a small network of Israelis who have been working full-time to care for this population. Out of his own pocket he provided funds for three months’ rent for a two-bedroom apartment in south Tel Aviv (plus one month security deposit and one month rental fee for the agent) which is now home to 11 Sudanese. Every drop in the bucket is still only a drop in the bucket, but it’s a beginning. He was told that all of the Sudanese in Israel have blanket permission to work while they are there, so they can become completely self-sufficient during the three months. Others have followed his example.

Still, of the 1,900 Sudanese in Israel, 600 are in jail, 96 of them, children.
The Israeli government is considering plans to allow 498 of the Sudanese to stay in Israel but may transfer the others to Egypt (this despite probable deportation back to Sudan—if they avoid being killed in Egypt). The “Hotline for Migrant Workers” (the main organization coordinating what relief efforts there are) is planning to challenge this in the Supreme Court if and when the government tries to implement the scheme.

To make their lives even more difficult the Sudanese are caught in a bureaucratic snafu. They were originally arrested under the “Israeli Infiltration” law which is administered by the Defense Ministry. But the Supreme Court ruled that they should have been arrested under the “Entry into Israel” law which is administered by the Justice Ministry. So, all of these cases now need to be reviewed and moved from the one Ministry to the other. In the meantime Defense says it cannot release the families because they are no longer under its jurisdiction and Justice says it cannot do anything until the cases are assigned to it. Gevalt!

The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC (RAC) has been accepting tax-deductible donations for the housing effort. The RAC will turn over the funds it receives to the Reform Movement’s Israel Religious Action Center in Jerusalem (IRAC) which will use the funds to pay for apartments.

Our cousin reminds that “I learned long ago, while working at the RAC and trying to help El Salvadoran refugees in the United States, that in the Torah the commandment to ‘protect the stranger’ is repeated more often (32 times, I believe) than any other commandment. It’s not because it’s the most important commandment, but because it’s the easiest to forget.”

Strangers at the gates seeking asylum. In Israel and in America, two lands of refuge. The movement of populations seeking better lives is inexorable; the strangers will change the character of the places they seek to enter. The unanswered question is—if so, for worse, or for better?