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A Troubled Exodus: Exploring the Perilous Plight of Sudanese Refugees in Israel April-23-2007
Reprinted by permission of SocialAction.com
In a provocative, in-depth, five-part series published recently by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and then reprinted in Jewish newspapers worldwide, Yossi Abramowitz reports on a frightening and potentially life-threatening situation faced by more than three hundred Sudanese who fled the genocides in Darfur and southern Sudan. They escaped the deadly massacres by fleeing to Egypt but, mistreated by the Egyptians and afraid they would be deported by them back to Sudan, they sought freedom by sneaking into Israel. That landed them in Israeli prisons.
SocialAction.com interviewed Yossi from his home in Israel to find out why he opted to focus on this particular humanitarian crisis and the ensuing moral dilemma for Israel and American Jewry. We also wanted to check in with the writer, social entrepreneur, educator, publisher, and lifelong social activist. Here is Part One of the interview.
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Eleven years ago Yossi Abramowitz founded (with Sue Laden) Jewish Family & Life! and helped create 25 award-winning multi-media projects, including SocialAction.com. Last year Yossi and his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman, and their five children moved to Kibbutz Ketura in Israel’s Arava desert. But he remains very much involved in JFL Media’s network of print and web publications as well as with groundbreaking Jewish educational programs. And he is still a dedicated social activist: Yossi is president of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, helped found and continues to promote Jewish Social Action Month and, along with his two eldest daughters, founded WorldManna.org, a business-friendly anti-hunger initiative they are working to bring to Israel. To find out more about what Yossi does when he’s not picking up his kids from school, teaching Torah, or tilling the land, visit his daily blog at www.peoplehood.org or see his slideshow of Darfur Exodus to Israel Photos.
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Social Action.com: Yossi, can you provide background information on the detainment of Sudanese refugees in Israel today and explain why you decided to write an expose of the situation.
Yossi Abramowitz: Right after we arrived on Kibbutz Ketura, a board member of Jewish Family & Life! gave my name to Anat Ben Dor of Tel Aviv University's Refugee Rights Clinic, since she was representing the refugees and was very frustrated with the results of the legal process. The JFL Board member thought that with my background in the anti-apartheid and oppressed Jewry movements, I might be able to be helpful. After speaking with Anat, who is one of the heroines of the expose, it was clear that a political strategy needed to be implemented alongside the legal one. I asked her permission to bring the issue up at the highest levels of the Israeli government. She agreed. I was convinced that if the key figures heard about the crisis, along with a practical proposal to resolve it, they would agree to do something.
When I met with the decision-maker, he said, "No, I won’t be the Menachem Begin of the Sudanese,” referring to former Prime Minister Begin's decision to take in 200 Vietnamese boat people in 1977 as a humanitarian gesture. It was clear that we had to go to Plan B: a fair but in-depth investigative series that showed the various perspectives, warts and all, and the way to a resolution.
Israel has every right to detain people who illegally slip into the country, but, according to international law, it should be a short-term detention. The ripple effects of the failure of the world to prevent the genocide in Sudan for the past generation has finally reached the shores of the Jewish state, well after reaching the consciousness and the conscience of American Jewry, thanks, in part, to an early Sh'ma expose of the issue.
I decided to get involved because a key element of Jewish Peoplehood is embracing the Exodus story and equal treatment of the stranger. It's the perfect balance between the particular and the universal in Judaism and we have to reclaim that balance in our public policy again. Here was a chance for me to sacrifice very little yet possibly help 340 refugees from Sudan. From the comfort and safety of an oasis in the desert where the Israelites passed on their way to the Promised Land, writing the expose is the least I could do.
SA: One official from the Jerusalem office of American Jewish Committee commented that, because “there isn’t a synagogue in the United States where Darfur is not an issue, you can’t imprison refugees from Darfur in the Jewish state and not expect American Jewry to be upset.” Tell us how Israeli and American Jewish groups are working together to find a solution to this vexing problem.
YA: In reporting the issue, I was struck at the influence that the American Jewish sensibilities and networks had on those advocating a more moral approach. Rita, who runs the crisis center for the Sudanese women and children, is originally from Long Island; Eytan Shwartz, the CARD spokesperson, was inspired by American Jewish activism and went back to Israel to help lead a creative and successful media campaign against government policy; small yet effective grants from Jewish Organizations helped nurture the grass-roots groups and individuals working here. Unfortunately JRA edited out of the story the fact that the first tangible manifestations of this relationship were the Anglo yeshiva student demonstrations in Jerusalem in October and November, 2006. I continue to have a soft spot for student activism.
SA: The American Jewish World Service, with Ruth Messinger at its helm, has put Darfur and genocide at the top of the agenda for Jewish activists. Are other Jewish organizations now getting involved with this human rights issue?
YA: Everyone is getting involved, but almost no one is doing anything tangible. The same is true with the genocidal threats from Iran. The rallies were great, of course, and lots of people, including kids via BabagaNewz, signed petitions and letters to the UN. Ruth Messinger is one of the prophets of our people. Yet the alphabet soup of American Jewry seems more concerned with being on the right side of the historical ledger than with plotting more aggressive and sustained actions.
With the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Jewry movement approaching, I think we have enough perspective to say that the American Jewish community has forgotten how to be activist on these genocidal issues, both the universal one in Sudan and the particular one regarding Iran. China is bankrolling Sudan for its oil. Every Chinese event, diplomat, conference should have people protesting vociferously against them. Every Sudanese interest section and representative should be similarly publicly harassed. Jews. Muslims, Christians, and other groups should be doing this together. When the Soviets didn't have an interest section, we picketed Aeroflot. Sudan Airways should likewise be shut down by protests. The Security Council and the UN have failed so far to do their job. If they believe there is genocide, then why are they waiting for permission from the Sudanese government to deploy a real force? Failure to truly respond to Sudan means that the world is also likely to stand by idly with Iran. If the international community can find the moral and political strength to end the genocide in Sudan, then perhaps they can similarly find the courage to prevent the genocidal intentions of Iran. American Jewry suffers from a terrible case of activist amnesia. But the rest of American society is even worse.
SA: In all fairness to Israel, you write in one of the articles that “faced with genocidal threats from Iran and terrorist groups, a legacy of the Holocaust and even echoes of the Exodus 3,700 years ago, Israel is torn between its commitment to universal humanitarian concerns and its own security interest.” Can you comment on that?
YA: The first responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens, and Israel is certainly at the vortex of many threats and hatreds. It is not easy maintaining humanitarian or larger Jewish responsibilities when one security mistake can be deadly. Al Qaeda has been plotting to smuggle in a dirty nuclear bomb through the Mexican border, so you can imagine the worst case scenarios that security officials here go through with refugees who come from Sudan, an Islamic fundamentalist country where Al Qaeda has training camps and which demonstrates through Darfur they have no respect for human life. But once the security forces determine that a suspect is truly a refugee, then we as Jews should follow our best and highest value-based instincts. For God's sake—perhaps literally—they are running away from genocide and come across through Sinai. If you are willing to open your eyes and ears, the shadows and echoes of history reverberate in these sands.
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