Refugees in a Land of Refuge

by Ben Beezy

After graduating USC I decided to go to Israel for a six-month period participating in a program called Israel Government Fellows.  

I have been given an internship in the Ministry of Justice working for the Government Coordinator of the Battle against Trafficking in Persons.  Most of the time I am reading international reports on the subject or researching laws or legal commentary for my mentor, but on Wednesdays I get to do something quite unique.

A colleague of mine named Gil and I travel to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem to volunteer in a shelter in the slums of south Tel Aviv for African refugees.  We come to teach English, but part of the experience is appreciating the fact that we have homes—a status in the world as citizens of a nation.

These people have documents from the United Nations saying they are refugees from war torn Eritrea or Sudan.  Their status is tenuous in Israel.  Some will be arrested and deported or some will be able to find work.  

These African refugees only number a few thousand, but I feel most people do not realize that there are over 250,000 foreign workers in Israel from across the globe.  Much like the United States, Israel’s relatively strong economy demands laborers that Israel simply does not naturally have.  

Workers come with economic aspirations hoping to earn money to send back to their families, but cases of abuse and exploitation of these workers have arisen.  Furthermore, there are hundreds of Eastern European and Central Asian women who are trafficked into Israel for the purpose of prostitution and are virtually enslaved.  

I am highlighting these problems not to show that Israel is overly corrupt or apathetic to human rights. Rather, I fear that Israel’s transcendence as a permanent and stable nation has caused Israel to veer away from its inspiring ideals.  

Almost all of Israel’s Jewish population comes from some form of refugee status whether it be from the Kishinev pogroms of 1903 to the Holocaust to the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands to the oppression from the Soviet Union.  Ironically, the treatment of refugees or wanderers in Israel is not a new phenomenon, but something that even the Bible had to address.  The famous quote from Exodus 22:20 says, “you shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  

As Israel prepares its incredible celebrations for its 60th anniversary, it must also remember its obligations as the Jewish state not only to Jews, but also to the rest of humanity’s downtrodden.  As part of Israel’s gift of existence, the state must realize its place as a regional superpower providing shelter to thousands of people fleeing the economic and political catastrophe.

 It was only in the near past that Jews wandered the Earth like the African refugees fleeing terror and depression.  To have a home is not something to be taken for granted, and I hope Israel’s 60th year of statehood will be a time of reflection for the obligations of a thriving Jewish state.