Ethiopians Protest Forced Move From Absorption Center

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Ethiopian immigrants protest forced move from Tiberias absorption center
By Vered Lee

Some 300 new immigrants from Ethiopia protested earlier this month after being told that their home, the Tiberias Recital absorption center, would be closing and they would be forced to move.

The immigrants are stunned and bewildered at the prospect of having to move so suddenly from the Jewish Agency absorption center and find new homes, jobs and schools for their children.

"She [the manager, Hava Sternberg] gave us no time to prepare, nobody talked to us. Our children are already in school here, and the recession is no time to look for new jobs or a place to stay," says Aveka Adis, 35, the immigrants' representative.
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After a long search, Adis found work washing dishes at Kibbutz Lavi nine hours a day - earning NIS 20 an hour. He and his wife, who does not work, have two children, aged 6 and 3, and have been staying at the absorption center for a year and three months.

"We're all employed in minimum-wage jobs we worked hard to find. We asked at least to let the children finish the school year but the director said 'there's nothing I can do, it's an order from the top of the absorption center and Jewish Agency.' We asked to speak to those in charge. They came after three days, we all waited outside the office door, but they shut themselves in a room with her and refused to talk to us," he says.

"Shlomo Ziv, the Absorption Ministry's official in charge of housing in the Haifa district, told us 'when we brought you from Ethiopia, we didn't ask you where you wanted to be. Now we can evacuate you to wherever we want, and you don't have a say in the matter,'" says Adis.

"I asked him, what about people who signed mortgage contracts and may lose their jobs? He said 'who are you to talk? I was born here and I need to pay mortgage, too. You're even getting money from the state.'"

For a week, January 7-13, the immigrants staged a protest strike, blocking the entrance to the center. They did not go to work and did not send their children to school.

Adis appealed to the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews (IAEJ), which persuaded the immigrants to stop their protest. Tiberias Mayor Zohar Oved intervened and asked to suspend the center's closure until the end of the school year.

"About two weeks ago, after the mayor's intervention, the ministry promised to suspend the closure until the end of this school year," the municipality said in a statement this week. "In any case, the municipality will continue to provide the immigrants with all the treatment and frameworks necessary."

But Adis says nobody has talked to the immigrants. "We're in the dark. Center employees received dismissal notices saying the place would close at the end of the month. Nobody told us where we would be moved, where our children would study and what would become of our jobs. What, aren't we human?"

Mula Karev, 29, father of two, has been living in the center for more than two years.

"I've been working for a year and two months in Upper Nazareth, filling cigarette vending machines in kiosks. It took me a long time to find work and I have a NIS 110,000 mortgage to pay. My wife gave birth recently and isn't working. If I lose this job, it will take me time to find another," he says in despair.

IAEJ director Danny Adamso blasted the Absorption Ministry and Jewish Agency for "repeatedly making hasty, thoughtless decisions that create long-term gaps in the immigrants' education and quality of life compared to other Israelis."

"The immigrants' request to be notified of the evacuation well in advance and their desire to maintain their jobs are legitimate and basic. It is doubtful the Education Ministry will find places for 100 children in new schools in the last third of the school year," he says.

The ministry and JA said they decided to close the center as part of streamlining measures to save the state millions of shekels. "After talks with all the tenants, we decided to move those with schoolchildren to absorption centers near Tiberias and provide them with transportation to school. The ministry has undertaken to prevent any detriment to the immigrants' services or welfare."

Comments

[omg]

Human nature can be SOOOOO disgusting! it is painful to read about Jewish people inflicting pain upon other Jews.

I am sure that running a country is no easy job, and that it is impossible to please all the people all the time. However, the treatment of the unfortunate by those more fortunate says alot.

Unless one's spirit is in tune with G-d's, where is the chesed? But of course those in control run on the mean. Such human nature!

The articles on this site, one after another about Jew vs. Jew, can be wearing on the soul. From placing bombs to sexual abuse to stealing,(and I'm sure there are other morbid examples), its all NO GOOD.

Now here's a thought-Is it possible that a connection exists between how Jews treat each other and how Jews are treated??

I will always remember what Aba Eban said about the downfall of Israel coming from within and not from without.

Does Hashem see all and dole out lessons to be learned, which feel like punishments? To my recollection, weren't the temples destroyed, and didn't the flood take place, because of how Jews treated ach other? I know there's debate about these issues. Of course there is. Those who are in the driver's seat don't want to look at themselves because it would be too ugly, so instead, they challenge and debate. Easier to debate than to look at oneself.

Oy, what a mess!

[uncle joe mccarthy]

money crunch is hitting everywhere

i really feel sorry for these people

the comments from the minister are totally uncalled for

jews, no matter where they are from, have a right to be treated well

this makes me sad

[joan.ozema]

KJ highest US poverty rate, census says
Expert on Hasidic communities says large families, poverty linked
Census Bureau data say more than two-thirds of Kiryas Joel residents live below the poverty line.
Matt King
By Matt King
Times Herald-Record
January 30, 2009

KIRYAS JOEL — This village has always had the distinction of being a cultural and religious enclave, but now it can add another:

Kiryas Joel is the poorest place in the country.…

[Edited by siteowner. Please see newer post for more details.]

[Yochanan Lavie]

Omg: plus ca change- ein chadash tachat hashemesh, t'was ever thus. Cicero warned the Romans of the enemy within centuries before Abba Eban (who probably read Cicero in Latin). I hope the Mayans are right about 2012. Time for a clean slate.