Israel Journal: Fighting For Israel's African Refugees

"My grandmother would be spinning in her grave if I wasn't doing this."

Fighting for Israel's African refugees
By YAAKOV LAPPIN • Jerusalem Post 

Driven by a passage from the Bible and the memory of his grandparents' plight, British-Israeli activist Nic Schlagman, 29, has decided to dedicate his life to helping Israel's African asylum-seekers.

In the absence of a coherent government policy on the estimated 17,000 to 20,000-strong African population in the country, volunteers like Schlagman, who heads the Israel Activists group, and other NGOs are attempting to fill the vacuum.

"My grandmother would be spinning in her grave if I wasn't doing this," Schlagman said on Wednesday evening. He was crossing the south Tel Aviv immigrant neighborhood of Neveh Sha'anan, which was filled with the sounds of African and Asian music, and the sights and smells of market stalls. "My grandparents staggered out of Eastern Europe as refugees," he said.

"'You shall not oppress a stranger... for you also were strangers in the Land of Egypt.' If you replace Egypt with Eastern Europe, you would be talking about today," Schlagman said. "Events like the Exodus and our recent history form the cornerstones of Jewish identity. At the very least, we must be sympathetic to refugees coming to our gate."

Earlier this week, local authority and police sources told The Jerusalem Post that southern Israel was being inundated with African migrants, and that most were not refugees fleeing crisis zones.

But Schlagman strongly disagrees, saying, "Of the 17,000 refugees here, 8,000, the largest group, are Eritreans. The Eritrean military conscripts from the ages of 14 to 45. Soldiers don't have enough food to eat. Large numbers of young people flee."

Some 80 percent of Eritreans who apply for asylum in other countries around the world receive refugee status, Schlagman said. In Israel, in addition to the Eritreans, there are approximately 6,000 refugees from southern Sudan and Darfur, he added.

In countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, asylum-seekers are processed within 30 days, but the majority of African refugees in Israel have had no decision taken on their fate for months and years.

"We just want a clear and just policy on refugee rights," Schlagman said. He recognized the necessity of deporting some of the arrivals, he added.

So far, only 170 Africans have been granted asylum. One of the lucky few is Ethiopian Christian refugee Yohanis Bayo, 36, who lives in Jerusalem. Bayo co-founded the African Refugees Development Center near Tel Aviv's central bus station, aimed at giving other refuge-seekers basic Hebrew and English literacy skills, and the chance to survive on Israel's streets.

Under Bayo's guidance, refugees have volunteered to help Israelis, carrying out tasks such as Pessah cleaning of the homes of poor Holocaust survivors.

"There is no policy on refugees," Bayo told the Post. "Millions of shekels are being wasted by this lack of policy. The government's approach is unimaginably terrible."

Bayo said the only policy he could identify was an attempt by the government to make life as difficult as possible for the refugees, so that they would refrain from bringing family and friends, and would eventually leave. "But this isn't working," he said, since most of the refugees had nowhere to go.

"The people are already here. You can't send them back. You've got to do something. The refugees are on your soil, in your house, so give them a corner to stand in," Bayo said.

"Putting them in prisons for five to six months is costing the state millions," he said. "We don't want to be a burden. We want to work, but we can't obtain work permits or travel freely around the country," he added, referring to the "Gedera - Hadera" ban in place on many of the refuge-seekers, which prohibits them from entering the Central region.

"Freedom is a fundamental world right. Most of these people are here because they had no freedom in their own country. Their freedom should not be stripped here," Bayo said.

Eyal Gibstein, 23, an American-Israeli student at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, is volunteering hours of his time to teach the refugees Hebrew. He jokes with his mostly African students as he cajoles them back into class after a coffee break.

"They come here after long hard hours cleaning, lifting heavy weights. They're so keen to learn and improve themselves," he said.

"The satisfaction I get is unbelievable. To see them learn Hebrew, and to know that I did this, that's a priceless feeling," Gibstein said, exuding passion. "I also try to instill Zionism in them."

Many of the refugees are religious Christians, and already view Israel as a holy land.

"We as Jews have no right to treat them badly," Gibstein said.

Comments

[Yochanan Lavie]

Better African Christians than extremist Muslims.

[alternative childcare]

There is a history of this, I've treated the Vietnamese refugees in Israel that Menachem Begin a"h saved, and back in the US was invited to the wedding of an Ethiopian Christian who had been saved during the rescue operations in Sudan, the Israeli soldiers saw this starving kid and took him along, he recovered, moved to the US, and built up a whole fleet of taxis, and is forever grateful to Israel for saving his life.

[David Willig]

Why I have not jumped on the bandwagon of Child Abuse.
(July 12) - Former Vancouver police officer Clyde Ray Spencer spent nearly 20 years in prison after he was convicted of sexually molesting his son and daughter. Now, the children say it never happened.
Matthew Spencer and Kathryn Tetz, who live in Sacramento, Calif., each took the stand Friday in Clark County Superior Court to clear their father's name, The Columbian newspaper reported.
Skip over this content
Matthew, now 33, was 9 years old at the time. He told a judge he made the allegation after months of insistent questioning by now-retired Clark County sheriff's detective Sharon Krause just so she would leave him alone.
Tetz, 30, said she doesn't remember what she told Krause back in 1985, but she remembers Krause buying her ice cream. She said that when she finally read the police reports she was "absolutely sure" the abuse never happened.
"I would have remembered something that graphic, that violent," Tetz said.
Spencer's sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Gary Locke in 2004 after questions arose about his conviction. Among other problems, prosecutors withheld medical exams that showed no evidence of abuse, even though Krause claimed the abuse was repeated and violent.
Despite the commutation, Spencer remains a convicted sex offender. He is hoping to have the convictions overturned.
Krause declined an interview request from The Columbian in 2005 and could not be reached Friday, the newspaper reported.
Both children said that while growing up in California they were told by their mother, who divorced Spencer before he was charged, that they were blocking out the memory of the abuse.
They said they realized as adults the abuse never happened, and they came forward because it was the right thing to do.
Prosecutors aren't yet conceding that Spencer was wrongly convicted. Senior deputy prosecutor Kim Farr grilled the children about why they are so certain they weren't abused, and chief criminal deputy prosecutor Dennis Hunter said that if the convictions are tossed, his office might appeal to the state Supreme Court.
Matthew Spencer said his father had ruined the relationship with his mother and he had faults, "but none of them were molesting children."
Friday's hearing paved the way for the state Court of Appeals to allow Spencer to withdraw the no-contest pleas he entered in 1985 and have his convictions vacated. Both children had previously filed statements with the appeals court, but the judges required the hearing to ensure their new testimony held up under cross-examination.
Spencer, 61, hugged his son and daughter afterward while a dozen supporters cheered.

[Shmarya]

Why I have not jumped on the bandwagon of Child Abuse.…

That's a bit childish, don't you think?

It's like paskening from the rare exception, rather than the rule or making American law based on rarities instead of on what usually happens.

Using what passes for your logic, there should no laws against murder because sometimes people are wrongly convicted.

And there certainly should be no traffic laws – after all, sometimes radar fails.

[WoolSilkCotton]

David Willig, your concerns are understandable.

In particularly nasty divorces (what Jewish divorce isn't ugly), parents try to manipulate young children against the other parent. Mental health professionals have confirmed that women are much more likely to do this than men.
It is horrifying to realize that children can be convinced of even nonexistent abuse, both by shrewd evil manipulative parents (usually the mother) as well as by overzealous prosecutors looking to make a name for themselves.

Consider reading the book The Parental Alienation Syndome.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_2_14?url=
search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=parental+alienation+syndrome+gardner
&sprefix=parental+alien

My own ex-wife tried to do this to me. Fortunately, I had the financial means to hire an excellent attorney and experts to interview the children. The charges were dismissed, but it cost me a fortune.

By the way, mental health professionals are surprisingly useless when they testify. They tend to be wishy-washy and play it close to the vest. They all seem afraid to show courage and take a firm stand on behalf or anyone or anything.

Of course, the ongoing accusations of child molestation horrors we read about in the religious community are not being adequately addressed by those communities. But, as you seem to be saying, every defendant has the right to defense counsel. Not everyone can afford the kind of attorney you really need. And even if a defendant 'wins', it leaves him financially devastated and his life in pieces.
May true, reasonable, appropriate justice prevail in this matter.

[David Willig]

Shmarya, the problem is there is nothing that is easier to claim and harder to prove, and the claim itself can be devastating without any real evidence. See Lillian Hellman's play, later made into a movie, THE CHILDREN'S HOUR. And what is it, anyway? I have heard father's accuses of abuse because they tickeled their toddler's. And to we really want to arrest parents who might spank their children? I am not saying that there is no such thing as abuse, of course their is. I am saying that there are hugs of closeness that are not sexual and not abusive. Charges should be carefully investigated before being made public.
On a personal note, I remember at age 7 going to Yankee Stadium and hoping that an adult would have an extra ticket to take me to the ball game. Is child abuse so much more prevalent today, or are we just more conscious of the possibility?

[maven]

David- any relation to the legendary Toby Willig?